


Regeneration

by Bread_and_Roses



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Ableist Language, Abuse, Aged-Up Character(s), Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Azula (Avatar) Redemption, Azula (Avatar)-centric, Child Soldiers, Depression, Developing Relationship, Dysfunctional Family, F/F, F/M, Femslash, Fire Nation (Avatar), Fire Nation Politics (Avatar), Fire Nation Royal Family, Firebending & Firebenders, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Growing Up, Healing, Internalized Homophobia, Lesbian Azula (Avatar), Mental Breakdown, Mental Health Issues, Mental Institutions, POV Azula (Avatar), Post-100 Year War (Avatar TV), Post-Avatar: The Last Airbender, Post-Canon, Post-Canon Fix-It, Redemption, Slow Burn, Suicidal Thoughts, The Search Comics (Avatar), Witchcraft, substance use
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-10
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:48:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 22
Words: 152,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25829917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bread_and_Roses/pseuds/Bread_and_Roses
Summary: Fire consumes without mercy, but in its wake lies the potential for new growth, stronger and healthier than that which came before it.
Relationships: Aang/Katara (Avatar), Azula & Iroh (Avatar), Azula & Kiyi (Avatar), Azula & Original Character, Azula & Ozai (Avatar), Azula & Ursa (Avatar), Azula & Zuko (Avatar), Azula/Ty Lee (Avatar), Ikem/Ursa (Avatar), Mai/Zuko (Avatar), Ozai & Ursa (Avatar), Sokka/Suki (Avatar)
Comments: 437
Kudos: 646





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to another one of those Azula Redemption Arcs! I use the word redemption as it has become shorthand in-fandom for the idea that Azula deserved a second chance, but I would prefer to think of this story as a healing arc. This fic is mostly canon-compliant with the animated ATLA series and will comply with some aspects of the comics (particularly The Search) but will predominantly be a divergence following the end of the show. As Azula is the main character of this story, most of it will be told from Azula's POV. There will, however, be chapters, partial chapters, interludes, or flashbacks from the POV of other characters as needed. Expect several time skips of varying length throughout the duration of the story, and please refer to the tags for content warnings. Tags may be updated as the story progresses, in which case I will give notice in an author's note. Happy reading!

_Azula inhaled, and her lungs filled with smoke. Ash rained down upon her head, and for once she didn’t care at all if it marred her appearance or ruined her uniform. The world before her burned red and gold, and it was all hers. Charred, broken bodies surrounded her in a perfect circle. The Avatar and his friends, punished for the crime of defying her. Zuko, poor foolish Zuko who had dared to challenge her. The rest of him now matched his ruined face. And before her, kneeling in defeat, her father. Electric energy coursed through her and she channeled it in perfect form, a smile twisting her lips as she glimpsed the fear in the Phoenix King’s eyes the moment before she dethroned him with a bolt of lightning straight to the heart. He toppled forward, twitching, his last words gasped and unintelligible. Azula laughed, exhilarated, as the last remaining obstacle in her path disappeared._

Azula, what have you done?!

 _S_ _he stiffened, turned on her heel, sank into a crouch._ “Leave me alone. Get away from me.”

Don’t do this. I love you. I always loved you.

“I said leave!”

 _Ursa stretched out her hands, her eyes sorrowful and pleading._ I know you love me, too. Come away with me, please. Before it’s too late.

 _A piercing scream cut through the stifling air._ “I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!” _Heat burst from her lungs, her mouth, the tips of her fingers, a raging fire that consumed her mother. Azula fell to her knees, sobbing, chest heaving as she struggled to breathe. The world burned and she was alone, nothing but smoke and soot and the inferno she had set ablaze closing in around her._

* * *

“She’s coming to, Fire Lord Zuko,” an unfamiliar, nervous voice buzzed somewhere outside of the fog. “Should I administer another dose?”

Azula groaned. Her head felt as though it were made of lead, stuffed with cotton. She tried to speak, but her mouth was dry. Her eyelids were too heavy to open fully, and the light streaming through the narrow, barred window was painful.

“No, not yet. You can step outside if you would feel safer.” Footsteps pattered across a hard floor, and a door creaked on its hinges before slamming shut. “I need you to stay calm, Azula,” Zuko’s voice cut through the mental fog, clear and commanding. “If you lash out at the staff again I won’t be able to justify keeping you here. A prison cell will be the only other option. Please don’t force me to do that.”

“Water,” Azula croaked. Zuko obliged, bringing a cup from a tray on the other side of the room. Azula tried to lift her arms to reach for the cup, and only then did she remember her restraints. A white jacket kept her arms bound tightly, preventing her from bending. Most of her bending, anyway. It came back to her then, the last incident which had led to her being so heavily sedated. The opposite wall was still blackened, though it looked as if someone had poorly attempted to scrub the scorch mark away. She recalled the screaming and shouting as she’d bellowed flames at her captors, and she couldn’t help but smile. Zuko helped her sit up from the low bed where she had been lying unconscious, for how long she didn’t know. She fought to open her eyes further and noted the look of discomfort on his face as he sat next to her and held the cup to her lips.

“What are you laughing at?” he questioned accusingly as she took a long, careful sip. “I don’t see anything funny here.”

Azula swallowed and ran her tongue along the inner edges of her chapped lips. “Poor Zuzu,” she rasped, her mouth still uncomfortably dry. “Fire Lord Zuko, reduced to playing nurse. It’s very funny.”

Zuko held the cup patiently while she drained it then stood up so abruptly that Azula almost lost her balance where she sat without her hands free to steady herself and her core muscles deteriorated from-weeks? months? she didn’t know anymore- of being strapped in a straitjacket, barely able to move. Confined to a _room_ in a _hospital_ , as everyone so politely called her cell in the asylum.

“You’re making me regret coming to see you already,” Zuko grimaced, standing back from Azula’s cot and crossing his arms over his chest defensively. “You may think it’s beneath a Fire Lord to look after his family, but I don’t. I could have locked you up like Father. I could have left you in some dingy cell _to rot_ , but I’m trying to help you here.”

Oh. _Oh_. Azula smirked. “How’s Mai? Did she like her little stint in prison?” Azula might be without her bending and most of her strength, and her head might be pounding and her voice cracked, but her tongue remained as sharp as a knife. She saw the way Zuko’s lips twitched, and knowing she could still affect him gave her a sense of satisfaction.

“Mai was your friend. What you did to her was despicable. You should be ashamed of yourself,” Zuko intoned, his voice now strained.

“Don’t be such an infant,” Azula scoffed. “You should be grateful I only had her imprisoned for her betrayal. I could have done so much worse.”

“The way I heard it, you almost did,” Zuko shot back. “Ty Lee was the only reason you didn’t.”

“ _Shut up_ ,” Azula snapped, all traces of amusement in her voice dissipating.

“You’re lucky none of us are cruel like you,” Zuko pushed.

“Oh aren’t you?” Azula looked pointedly down at the straitjacket, twisting in her constraints, sudden fury coursing through her. She felt as if she could crawl out of her own skin. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to live like this?” she hissed.

“That’s your own fault,” Zuko replied. “If you could just-”

_You don’t have to live like this, Azula. It doesn’t have to be this way._

“Go away,” Azula interjected. “Leave me alone.”

“Not yet. I need to talk to you."

Ursa stood beside Zuko and placed a hand on his shoulder, though her eyes remained locked on Azula’s. _We could be a family again._

“I hate you!” Azula roared. “Everything was perfect before you came back! _You destroyed me!_ ”

Zuko blinked at the outburst but maintained his composure. “What did you expect to happen? Did you think we would just stand back and let you and Father burn the whole-”

_I failed you, I know. But I did love you. I still love you. I always will._

“Make her leave. _Make her leave_ , Zuko,” Azula demanded, her gaze landing just past him, eyes glowing golden with fury.

Zuko furrowed his brow and glanced toward the door of the cell. “How did you know…?”

Ursa stepped toward the cot, arms outstretched.

Azula screamed, throwing herself backward on the cot, desperate to avoid her mother’s touch, her head narrowly missing the stone wall behind her. Zuko lurched forward to grab her, aiming for the straps of her straitjacket and missing as she jerked backward on the cot.

“Stop it! You’ll hurt yourself!”

Flames erupted from Azula’s mouth as she threw her head backward and screamed again, kicking wildly at Zuko, at Ursa.

“Ty Lee!” Zuko shouted as he grabbed Azula’s ankles and ducked the flames she spewed.

The door banged open then, and a petite Kyoshi Warrior burst through. She froze in shock for a moment, but when Zuko shouted her name again she sprang into action, crossing the room and delivering three swift, precise jabs into Azula’s body. Azula felt everything go limp then, the flames evaporating in a wisp of smoke as the chi blocking effectively stopped her bending. Zuko pulled her heaving frame upright and rested her back against the wall before stepping away, clearly shaken. Azula stared wild-eyed at the Kyoshi Warrior, for a moment failing to connect the image of the girl before her with Zuko’s call for her old friend.

“ _Traitor!_ ” She spat the word out almost before she had fully realized that it was Ty Lee standing before her. Ursa had mercifully disappeared, leaving Azula free to focus her impotent rage on her former friend. Her betrayer.

“Enough, Azula,” Zuko commanded. “Clearly I was right to have Ty Lee come with me today, but if you don’t stop you’ll have to be sedated again.”

As impressive as Ty Lee looked in her crisp green dress, light armor, and headdress, with her fans at her side, Azula could sense how disturbed she was. Afraid, even. The heavy Kyoshi makeup couldn’t conceal that entirely. Azula looked her up and down slowly, as if judging every element of her presentation, then gazed straight into her eyes.

“It suits you,” she sneered. Ty Lee blinked, the barb behind the compliment clearly landing exactly where it was intended to. “One of a matched set,” Azula added with a harsh laugh.

Ty Lee turned abruptly to Zuko then. “I’ll be outside if you need me. But from now on, you can bring one of my sisters with you. They’re all learning chi blocking. I won’t be coming back here again.” She bowed to the Fire Lord and walked out without so much as another glance in Azula’s direction, closing the door behind her with a thud.

“Was that necessary?” Zuko scolded. “You couldn’t just-”

“What do you want, Zuko?” Azula cut him off, deep weariness setting in then. “Why are you even here?”

Zuko sighed, rubbing a hand over the bad side of his face. “I need you to come with me to the prison.”

“Why?” Azula’s ripped her gaze from the cell door and focused on Zuko, eyes narrowed.

“Because I want you to talk to Father. I need to know what happened to our mother, and I can’t get anything out of him. I thought maybe he would talk to you.”

The mention of Ursa agitated Azula anew, but she rallied and held onto her composure. “Well, have you considered torturing him?”

Zuko seemed shocked by the nonchalance with which she suggested something so vile. “No, I haven’t considered torturing our father. _What is wrong with you_?”

“Why not?” she pressed, enjoying his discomfort. “Didn’t he torture you? Don’t you look at your face in the mirror every day and want to make him feel pain? I mean, that alone should be enough reason for you to-”

“Stop it. I’m not interested in hurting anyone. I’m interested in finding Mother. _Our_ mother. Aren’t you?”

 _Oh yes. Oh yes, I am_.

Azula managed an awkward shrug. “I don’t care either way. But I’ll talk to Father for you. On one condition.”

“What’s that?”

Azula jerked against the confinement of the straitjacket. “No more of this.”

Zuko frowned. “You’ve almost hurt multiple people and yourself even with that jacket.”

Azula tried to appear sincere. “I give you my word, Zuko. If I get information from Father for you, and you have them take this thing off me, I’ll stay here of my own volition. I won’t bend. I won’t hurt anyone.”

“I don’t trust you,” Zuko countered. “No one trusts you. No one feels safe around you.”

Azula considered him for a moment, then lowered her voice and tried to lean toward him as best as she could under the circumstances. “Can I tell you something, Zuzu?”

Zuko’s brow furrowed deeper, and she chastised herself for going too far with the use of his old nickname.

“Go ahead…” he answered cautiously.

Azula glanced around the room, uncertain she was making the right move but pressing ahead as she decided she had little other choice. “I’ve been seeing her. Mother, I mean.”

Zuko looked around the room too then. “What do you mean?”

Chewing on her lower lip for a moment, Azula hesitated. “I see her. I hear her. I know she isn’t there, but… I mean, sometimes I know she isn’t really there, but other times it’s hard to tell.”

Realization dawned in Zuko's expression. He stared at Azula for a moment, and she could sense him softening. Just as she had wagered he would.

“Since when?”

“Since… just before the comet.”

He began pacing the room then, clearly disturbed and unsure of what to do with the information she had shared. “Have you… have you told anyone else about this? Any of the doctors or-”

“No,” Azula affirmed. “Just you.”

Zuko stopped pacing and sat beside her on the bed again, leaning his elbows on his knees and dropping his head into his hands. The sleeves of his royal robes almost brushed the floor.

“I don’t know what you expect from me, Azula,” he muttered. “I hate this. I don’t want to do this to you. I never wanted to hurt you, not really. But you wanted to hurt me, and you probably still do. You’ve tried to kill me, more than once.”

 _Of course I still do, you absolute fool. You’re weak and stupid, and you don’t deserve to be Fire Lord._ Repressing her disgust, Azula sat silently and allowed him to work toward his conclusion.

“I can’t make any promises now,” Zuko finally announced. “We’ll go see Father together later this week, and if things go well between now and then, we can revisit this subject.”

“No,” Azula snarled, all of her control snapping as she realized Zuko was not going to be so easily manipulated anymore. “No decision, no deal, _no chance of finding your precious Ursa._ ”

Zuko’s jaw visibly clenched as he stood up from the cot and moved away from her. “We’re not going to do this, Azula,” he stated authoritatively, shaking his head. “It’s not going to be like it was any longer, and you’re in no real position to bargain. You’re coming to see Father with me, and if you want even a chance of a little more freedom, you’re going to have to earn it.”

“You’re pathetic,” Azula sneered back. “Fire Lord, ha! I’ll be shocked if you last a year. Your subjects are probably plotting to have you removed already. The Fire Nation will never tolerate such a weak leader for long.”

“Pathetic?” Zuko’s hands had balled into fists at his side, but there was fire in his voice as he towered over Azula. “I’m not the one who’s in a straitjacket in a cell, wriggling around like a worm in the dirt!”

Azula went very still, and for a moment she felt as though she could generate lightning from her skin. She recognized that the tingling heat that washed over her was not just rage, it was also the returning flow of her chi. She lurched to her feet and threw herself at Zuko full force.

Zuko dodged her assault, just barely, and Azula crashed into the small wooden table. The empty tray and cup clattered to the ground, but Azula caught herself on the table’s edge. Zuko darted to the door, opening it and slipping out and pulling it shut again behind him just in time for Azula’s second assault to send her slamming into the door. Shaken, Zuko looked back at her through the small window opening while she continued to slam her body into the door and scream curses down upon him.

“You’re crazy,” Zuko panted, gritting his teeth. “I don’t know why I even bothered.”

“I hate you!” Azula screamed back, ramming herself into the door with such force that she was sent sprawling backwards onto the ground. She did not rise again, instead kicking her cot and table so hard she almost broke them. Her screams were overtaken by flames ripping from her throat, blackening the stone walls and filling her cell with flares of blue light.


	2. Chapter 2

Ty Lee slammed the door to Azula’s cell behind her and almost ran down the full length of the hallway before she remembered that she had just told Zuko she would stay. Gritting her teeth, she retraced her steps and stopped just outside the cell, leaning against the wall. She wished she couldn’t hear the conversation-if you could even call it that-happening back inside the room so clearly. It was turning her aura pitch black. 

_One of a matched set_. She was a fool to have ever opened up so much among supposed friends. Of course Azula would use her insecurities as a weapon. Of course she would. Ty Lee allowed herself to slip down to the ground and pulled her knees up to her chest, hating everything about the hospital. Hating the sounds and the smells and the dismal lighting. Hating the clear signs of suffering and the nurses in their crisp uniforms scurrying to and fro, dark circles under their eyes, full of nervous energy. She pitied whichever poor souls were assigned to Azula. 

The sight of her former friend, her Princess, had shocked Ty Lee. It hadn’t been so very long since that day at Boiling Rock, though her days of imprisonment had dragged with torturous slowness and the days since she’d been freed and joined the Kyoshi Warriors felt like a whirlwind. That day, Azula had been completely herself, full of arrogance and confidence and eventually, rage. Not a hair out of place despite the disgusting humidity generated by that prison’s environment. Even after she’d saved Mai and sent Azula tumbling into a limp heap on the ground who needed to be lifted and held up by Fire Nation guards while passing sentence on them, Azula had still been herself. If not for the fact that she’d stuck Ty Lee’s own words into her like a knife and twisted, in true Azula fashion, Ty Lee would scarcely have recognized the girl in the cell. She was dirty and disheveled. Her hair looked as though someone had taken scissors haphazardly to the front and left the back to tangle into an elephant rat’s nest. Her face looked gaunt and her eyes wild, like some sort of malevolent spirit with no use for food or sleep. 

“Are you alright?”

Ty Lee blinked up at the nurse who had ventured over to check on her, and only then did she realize she was crying. She touched a gloved finger to her cheek and realized her makeup was smearing. “I’m alright, thank you,” Ty Lee grimaced, trying to sound better than she felt. 

“You were with the Princess?” the older woman asked, glancing uneasily at the door.

“Only for a moment,” Ty Lee sniffled, gingerly patting makeup residue from her glove onto the hem of her green dress. _Only for a moment_. Only for most of her life, almost as far back as she could remember. 

* * *

It was her first day at the Royal Fire Academy for Girls. Ty Lee’s mother had brought her in, signed a form, kissed the top of her head, and told her to do well. It took every ounce of will power in her little body to keep herself from running after her mother as she left. As excited as she had been to start attending school, that excitement had turned to nervousness the moment she’d seen the looming building. The cherry trees lining the front entrance were pretty to look at though, and Ty Lee had plucked a blossom from a low-hanging branch on their way inside. She was still holding on to the little pink flower as her mother left and the headmistress led her down an austere, red-carpeted hall to her first classroom. Inside the room were around a dozen other little girls, all dressed appropriately in shades of red and maroon and pink. The teacher at the front of the room was a young woman dressed in black robes with gold trim, and her plain face lit up with a kind smile as Ty Lee was introduced to her. On impulse, Ty Lee held out the little cherry blossom she had been clutching, offering it to her new teacher. The woman accepted it with a pleased exclamation and a bow, but Ty Lee’s elation was soon squashed by the sound of snickering. She looked at her new classmates and realized that some of them were laughing at her. Stricken, she ducked her head and hurried over to the empty cushion indicated by the teacher. Ty Lee wished she could hide, but she settled for folding herself as delicately and neatly into a cross-legged seat on her pillow as she could.

“You’re new.”

Ty Lee turned to her left to see a pale girl with black hair staring at her. She nodded. “I’m Ty Lee,” she offered hesitantly. 

“I know, I heard,” the other girl countered. “I’m Mai.”

“Pleased to make your acquaintance,” Ty Lee chirped, remembering her manners. _Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all._

“If you say so,” the other girl replied. It could have been rude, but Ty Lee didn’t sense that. She stifled a giggle, and Mai rewarded her with a half smile. 

“So, what are we doing?” she queried, quickly taking in the rest of the room, her classmates, faces, the large black board at the front of the room, and her teacher carrying on a quiet discussion with the headmistress.

“Waiting.” Mai flicked a stray lock of hair out of her eyes. “We don’t start without-”

Mai was interrupted by a whispered shushing sweeping through the circle of girls. Ty Lee followed everyone’s gaze back to the front of the room, where a small, impeccably dressed girl with dark hair had just arrived, followed by an old woman. 

“Princess,” the headmistress bowed, and the teacher followed suit. 

“You’re late today, Princess,” the teacher began, only to be silenced by widened eyes and a quick head shake from the headmistress. 

“She’s new, too,” Mai whispered to Ty Lee, jerking a thumb toward the teacher.

Ty Lee scarcely noticed. Her wide eyes were focused on the new arrival. “Is that…?” she whispered.

“Yeah,” Mai replied. 

The Princess was scowling then, eyeing the teacher who had seemingly offended her. “Well, my mother was _too busy_ to bring me this morning, and Lo walks too slow,” she retorted, not bothering to even look at the old woman who was holding her cloak. 

The woman huffed but did not reply. Ty Lee thought the woman’s aura was very pink even if her face was wrinkled and looked grumpy. The Princess’s aura seemed blue, but not a peaceful blue like the ocean or a cloudless sky. Ty Lee couldn’t figure out immediately exactly what sort of blue it was, but she knew it wasn’t anything peaceful and calming. 

“That’s quite alright, Princess,” the headmistress soothed. “It is our pleasure and our duty to wait on you.” 

The Princess smiled. “Of course it is.”

“Well, alright then, young ladies,” the teacher interjected, suddenly looking nervous and unhappy. “It’s time for our morning exercise.” 

Mai stood up and Ty Lee followed her lead, moving behind her in the single line that the girls formed by habit. They began filing out of the room behind the teacher, walking past the headmistress and the old woman and the Princess. Ty Lee risked a curious glance at the Princess as she passed. They were nearly the same height, and the Princess stared right back, as if challenging her. Ty Lee offered a shy smile, then ducked her head and quickened her steps, almost smacking straight into Mai. 

“Watch it!” Mai hissed, “You just stepped on my heels.”

“Sorry!” Ty Lee whispered back. She glanced over her shoulder and realized the Princess was watching both of them with a tiny smirk, as if she found them amusing but couldn’t be bothered to laugh. Ty Lee grabbed the end of her braid and fiddled with it as she followed Mai and the rest of the girls out into the courtyard. 

The teacher marched them around the courtyard at a brisk pace several times then had the girls form a circle around the fountain in the middle and follow her in a series of stretching exercises. Ty Lee noticed that two royal guards who hadn’t been there when she arrived at the school were now stationed at the entrance to the courtyard, looking bored. The Princess herself had followed the group outside at a leisurely pace, and it was clear to Ty Lee that whatever rules applied to the rest of them did not apply to her. She marched around the courtyard with the rest of the group only once, then moved to an empty space beneath a lone maple tree and began practicing forms. Ty Lee found it distracting, but the other girls seemed used to it. She gasped when she saw flames eventually burst from the Princess’s palms and swing dangerously close to the branches of the tree that was giving her shade. 

“Don’t tell me you’ve never seen firebending before?” Mai questioned when she noticed Ty Lee’s reaction. 

“Of course I’ve seen it before!” she protested, bending to touch her toes and reaching for the sky again in one fluid motion as she followed their teacher’s lead. “I just… thought you had to be a grown up to do it.”

Mai seemed to think that was funny, but she stopped laughing when another girl on the other side of Ty Lee laughed also. Ty Lee thought she heard the girl mutter _stupid_ under her breath, but she wasn’t sure. 

They were eventually brought back inside for several hours of classes. Ty Lee found it fun at first, but as each new subject melted into the next she began to feel as though her head was melting as well. When they were eventually released back into the courtyard for a recess after their noon meal, she couldn’t restrain herself from cartwheeling through the soft grass and collapsing under the shade of the courtyard’s tree. As much as she wanted to make friends with the other girls, she couldn’t bring herself to approach the small groups of them that were scattered across the courtyard and decided to wait for Mai instead. She didn’t know if her new friend had any other friends, but either way, she liked her. 

“You’re in my spot.”

Startled, Ty Lee opened her eyes to find the Princess staring down at her, arms folded across her chest. She bolted upright.

“I’m...sorry?” She squinted up at the other girl outlined in bright sunshine. “Do you want to join me?” Ty Lee scooted over, offering her place in the grass.

The Princess quirked a brow, and Ty Lee wondered if she had said the wrong thing. 

“Actually, no. You stay there. I have to practice anyway.” The Princess stepped back from Ty Lee and assumed one of her bending stances. “I’m Azula, by the way,” she mentioned casually as she moved through her forms. “Princess Azula, but I think I’ll let you call me Azula.”

“Okay…. thanks!” Ty Lee grinned, suddenly elated. She bounded up to her feet and twirled in a circle. “I’m Ty Lee.”

Azula didn’t reply, in fact she seemed to forget that Ty Lee was there at all. Ty Lee didn’t mind. She was thrilled that a princess of the Fire Nation had spoken to her and had even allowed her to use her first name. Ty Lee watched Azula’s firebending forms, fascinated, pressing up on the tips of her toes to keep herself from trying to imitate them. When she spotted Mai emerging into the courtyard, she waved and called her over. Mai squinted and walked toward the tree, then she froze in her tracks when she spotted Azula. 

“It’s okay!” Ty Lee called. “It’s okay, right?” she asked Azula, belatedly realizing that she shouldn’t speak for the Princess. 

Azula paused mid-form, glanced over toward Ty Lee and Mai, shrugged, then continued with her practice. Ty Lee waved Mai over again, who reluctantly did as she was bid. 

“Do you know Princess Azula, Mai?” Ty Lee asked innocently once Mai had joined them under the shade of the tree.

Mai seemed uncomfortable. “Yes. I mean, no. Not really. We’ve both been here for a while, but of course everyone knows who Princess Azula is.”

Ty Lee noticed a satisfied smile on Azula’s face as she finished her forms with an abrupt spinning kick that sent a small plume of fire into the air. Ty Lee clapped her hands together and almost squealed. “That was amazing, Azula!”

Azula turned her full attention to both of the other girls then. “Mai doesn’t like anyone in this school,” she stated as a matter of fact. 

Mai blinked. “Why would you say that?” she asked. “You don’t even know me.”

“You don’t talk to anyone,” Azula asserted. 

“Neither do you,” Mai shot back, startling Ty Lee with her boldness. She wondered if the Princess would be angry.

Azula seemed to consider that for a moment, then she shrugged. “Well, I’m talking to both of you now, aren’t I?”

Mai didn’t respond, and Azula smiled. “See? I’m right. But you can talk to me if you want to. So long as you aren’t boring.”

Ty Lee looked between the two girls, a nervous excitement making her blurt out, “I don’t think either one of you are boring! Azula can firebend, and Mai…” Ty Lee blinked, “Well, I don’t know what Mai does, but-”

“I like knives,” Mai interjected.

Azula found that funny, and Ty Lee laughed along with her. To make certain that Mai wouldn’t take offense, she quickly drew the other girls’ attention to herself.

“Hey, look what I can do!” she exclaimed, abruptly kicking over onto her hands. She paused in place for a moment to steady herself, then began walking. It was a trick she’d seen performers doing on a trip to the circus for her last birthday, and Ty Lee had quickly taught herself how to perform it.

Upside down, she could see both Azula and Mai watching her as she toddled across the lawn on her hands. Emboldened by their attention, she kept going, longer and further than she had ever managed to before. She was so pleased with her success that she didn’t catch herself before she hand-walked straight into a tight circle of her other classmates, bumping into one of them. 

" _Get off, freak!”_ She felt a hand on her legs, pushing, and then she was tumbling to the ground. Ty Lee blinked up at the face glaring down at her, recognizing the face and voice of the girl she thought had called her stupid earlier. 

“I’m so sorry!” she exclaimed. “I didn’t see where I was going.” She pushed to her feet and tried to brush herself off, but the other girl reached over and shoved her back to the ground. She landed on her tailbone with a painful thud, and quick tears sprang into her eyes.

“Just stay away from us, you weird-” The girl’s voice was cut off by a shriek, and through the blur of her tears Ty Lee saw a whip-like flame snapping through the air, mere inches from the girl’s face. It disappeared as quickly as it came, but the smell of burnt hair lingered. 

Azula landed gracefully in front of Ty Lee and stood perfectly still for a moment before she viciously shoved Ty Lee’s assailant to the ground. The girl stared up at her in shock, absently reaching up to touch the singed fringe of her hair. Azula bent down, and the girl flinched. 

“You’re never going to bother her again. And you’re not going to be a tattle tale either. _Or else_. Got it?”

The girl nodded slowly, eyes wide, then scrambled to her feet and hurried away with the rest of her friends in tow. Azula turned and offered her hand to Ty Lee, who accepted it and let Azula pull her to her feet.

“You’re going to have to learn how to defend yourself, Ty Lee,” Azula chided. 

Ty Lee sniffled and nodded, embarrassed that she’d been seen crying on her first day of school, and by the Princess of all people. She rubbed at one eye with the back of her free hand. Azula didn’t let go of the other. 

“Come on,” Azula tugged at Ty Lee’s hand and led her to rejoin Mai under the shade of their tree. “We’re friends now, and friends don’t let friends get beat up by ugly girls whose fathers are petty merchants.”

Ty Lee giggled, and she felt then that everything really would be alright. Azula, the Princess of the Fire Nation, was her friend. How did she ever get so lucky?

* * *

The nurse jumped as a clattering crash came from within the cell. Suddenly the door flew open and the Fire Lord stumbled out, slamming the door behind him. A dull thud followed, and the sounds of Azula’s raging filled the air. Ty Lee pushed to her feet and rushed to Zuko’s side.

“You’re crazy!” he rasped at the door’s window. “I don’t know why I even bothered.”

“ _I hate you!”_ Azula screamed. Ty Lee peeked through the corner of the window just in time to see Azula fling herself into the door again and fall backward. She lay writhing where she fell on the ground, kicking the pieces of furniture in her room so hard that Ty Lee worried she would injure herself. It hurt to watch, so Ty Lee closed her eyes and stepped aside.

“Do you want a sedative for her now, My Lord?” the nurse asked Zuko. He shook his head. 

“No. Let her scream ‘til she loses her voice. Let her wear herself down.”

“But, the fire…” the nurse persisted, glancing nervously at the flashes of blue light coming from the cell.

“She can’t burn down stone,” Zuko insisted. “And if she turns her furniture to ash, she can sleep and eat on the ground. She has to learn that she can’t behave like this.”

“Zuko, I’m not sure-” Ty Lee ventured.

“Look, I know what I’m doing, alright?!” Zuko cut her off, exasperated. “I can handle this. I can.”

He wasn’t convincing anyone, not even himself by the looks of it. Ty Lee exchanged a glance with the nurse, who threw up her hands and walked back down the hall. 

“I’ll send someone to check in soon,” Zuko called after her, sounding defeated.

Ty Lee took Zuko by the arm and pulled him away from the cell door. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

Zuko sighed and allowed Ty Lee to guide him back down the hallways towards the building’s exit. They didn’t say another word until they were back outside. The sun was shining and there were birds chirping, so cheerfully it almost seemed wrong that they should be so happy and carefree just beyond such misery.

“I heard what she said in there,” Ty Lee hedged cautiously.

“Which part? The part where she said she hates me, or the part where she said my own people are going to turn against me?” Zuko asked with a bleak laugh.

“No, what she said about… seeing your mother,” Ty Lee stopped walking and turned to face Zuko on the pathway. “Do you think that’s true?”

He threw up his hands. “I have no idea. I don’t know what to believe anymore. Azula _always lies_ , but then… there’s been something wrong with her. There has been since the day of the Agni Kai. I’ve seen her angry before, but never… just, not like this. This feels like something different.”

Ty Lee nodded slowly. “I hate to say it, but I think there is something very, _very_ wrong with her. Beyond just the fact that she’s such a spiteful…” Ty Lee waved her hands, “you know.”

“Yeah, I know,” Zuko sighed. “I guess I need to talk to the doctor. On top of _everything else_ going on. As if trying to piece the world back together after a hundred-year war isn’t enough.”

“Well, at least you’ve got the Avatar and friends to help you with that part of it,” Ty Lee offered. She chewed on her lower lip for a moment. “Look, I’m happy to help you out with anything you need too, Zuko. Anything but this,” she added firmly. “Next time one of the other girls can come here with you. I just can’t do it again.”

“I understand,” Zuko scratched at his forehead and sighed. “You don’t need to listen to her being so awful. And I’m sorry, by the way,” he added. “Those things she said to you… she wouldn’t have been able to attack you like that if _I_ hadn’t attacked you that day at the beach.”

Ty Lee shook her head. “That doesn’t matter now. Even if I’d never told all of you those things about myself, Azula knew anyway. She always knows everybody’s weaknesses. She knows how to hurt people.”

“That’s for sure,” Zuko agreed.

“Actually, it didn’t hurt nearly as bad as it would have in the past,” Ty Lee reassured him, smoothing the wrinkles on her Kyoshi uniform. “I’m learning that being part of a group doesn’t mean you have to give up who you are. I don’t have to be a _circus freak_ to be myself.”

Zuko grimaced, but she was only teasing him. She pulled one of her fans from her belt and poked him in the arm with it. “You should get back to your royal duties, or Mai, or uh… whatever it is you were doing before.” She grinned up at him impishly and earned a laugh, though Ty Lee could see he was blushing. Satisfied she had cheered him up at least a little bit under the circumstances, she nudged him with her fan once more. “Go on then. And tell Mai we’re still on for tomorrow.”

“I will,” Zuko said with a courteous bow. “And thank you, Ty Lee.”

“Don’t mention it, Fire Lord,” Ty Lee replied with a dramatic bow of her own, her opened fan kicking up dust as it swept the ground. 

Zuko shook his head as he walked away, and Ty Lee waited until he was out of sight to burst into a full speed run. She had meant to go home, back to the apartments she was sharing in the capital with the Kyoshi Warriors, but she knew she couldn’t be around them now. She couldn’t let them see her like this.

She couldn’t get the images out of her mind: Azula bound and writhing on the ground; Azula’s amber gaze ripping past all her layers of makeup and defenses and staring straight into her soul, searing and venomous; Azula, broken and screaming. 

It didn’t take much for Ty Lee to break into the old building. It had been abandoned hastily on the Day of Black Sun, barely locked down by its evacuating caretakers, unopened since. Wielding her fan as a weapon, Ty Lee slashed through the chain holding the double doors of the entrance closed, kicked the doors open, and fled down the red-carpeted hallway. She ran out into the courtyard and past the silent fountain. Beneath the withering maple tree, she crumpled to the ground and wept. 


	3. Chapter 3

**One **Y** ear Later**

“Almost finished,” the nurse tasked with brushing out Azula’s hair murmured meekly as she worked. 

Azula said nothing, clenching her jaw as she waited. Having her hair brushed had once been one of her favorite things, but now she found it irritating. Nonetheless, she couldn’t go to visit her father looking like a disheveled street rat, so she subjected herself to meticulous grooming by the staff. Only a few months ago she’d finally been allowed the dignity of bathing in the facilities alone with a guard outside the door rather than having a nurse quickly bathe her after one of the Kyoshi freaks blocked her chi so she couldn’t hurt anyone or attempt an escape. The humiliation of it all still rankled to think about, but she chose to set it aside in favor of strategy. Over time, she’d gotten rather good at compartmentalizing the things that would have triggered her rage beyond all control since her imprisonment. Even the hallucinations of her mother became a mere annoyance at times, distressing as they remained. Sometimes she still struggled to determine reality from her mind’s fictions, but she’d endured enough sessions with Doctor Ido to pick up some skills to help her in the endeavor. She hated them all, Doctor Ido and the nurses and the Kyoshi Warriors and everyone else she’d been forced to encounter since her imprisonment, but she stifled her loathing and endured them. Most of the time, anyway. There had certainly been a few _incidents_ over the last year, but Azula had gotten better at regaining control of herself once she accepted that her only way out, her only way _to win_ , was to keep her cool and sacrifice the immediate satisfaction of hurting those who wronged her for the ultimate satisfaction of destroying them. She’d noticed that the staff who had once scurried around her like frightened mice had relaxed, if only a little. Doctor Ido was full of praise for her progress, and he assured her that he was keeping Zuko updated frequently. Zuko himself had only come back to see her again a handful of times after the time she had attacked him. Too busy being Fire Lord, she supposed, though she was sure her behavior that day hadn’t left him too eager to return. She heard rumors even in the asylum, and she’d begun bribing a select few members of the staff for information from the outside. Did promising not to try to burn the peasants bringing her meals count as bribing, or more of a threat? Either way, she’d gotten her hands on interesting bits of news, though it was all so disjointed it was hard to make sense of everything. There was some nonsense about a restoration movement involving the colonies which Zuko was part of and then abandoned, and apparently a narrowly-avoided war with the Earth Kingdom as well. She was disappointed to hear that whatever had happened in the Fire Nation colonies seemed to have not damaged Zuko’s reign as Fire Lord irreparably. Pity. 

“All done then,” the nurse's voice interrupted Azula’s thoughts. “Would you like to see?” The nurse held out a small mirror set in a dull metal frame. 

Azula gingerly swiped the mirror from the nurse’s hand and turned toward the light to better see herself. Her gaze swept critically over the job the woman had done with her hair. The top half was pulled up and encased in a simple gold piece, and the sections of hair framing her face had regrown and been trimmed to rest just below her chin again. The rest of her hair was down and simply brushed through. She was very pale, and her face seemed thinner despite the fact that her _best behavior_ included eating whatever meals were prepared for her and taking advantage of the opportunities she was given for supervised exercise. She was dressed plainly in black and red, a garment that had been retrieved for her from her old quarters in the palace. At least she was free of the straitjacket, a concession Zuko had made months after their conversation about it and long after she had begun cooperating with her treatment -if one could call it that- to influence his decision on the matter. She’d been guarded night and day by at least one Kyoshi Warrior in addition to the regular guards since the straitjacket was removed, a convenience for Zuko given that the Warriors had apparently decided to take up duties as the Fire Lord’s personal bodyguards. _How nice of you to spare one of your own guards for me, Zuzu_ , she’d simpered when she was introduced to her new companions. _You’re always thinking of my safety and welfare._ Zuko hadn’t appreciated her mocking, but from that day forward only once did Azula give any of the Kyoshis a reason to lay a hand on her beyond the routine chi blockings when she was still having her hygiene taken care of by the nursing staff. She had taunted them on occasion, but she quickly grew bored of them and resorted to ignoring their existence altogether. She had nothing further to learn from them anyway. She’d been chi blocked so consistently during the early days of her imprisonment that she was almost certain she could replicate the practice herself if she needed to. Perhaps someday soon she would be given a reason to try it out and see.

“Are you satisfied?” the nurse questioned hesitantly.

Azula sighed. “It’s fine,” she replied, shoving the mirror back into the nurse’s hand and rising from her seat in her cell.

 _You look beautiful, Azula_. 

Azula grimaced at her mother. “Today is an important day. Stay out of my way.”

The nurse did not react, long since accustomed to hearing Azula address someone who wasn’t there. The woman shuffled over to the door and opened it, stepping back to allow Azula to pass. “Princess,” she intoned as her hands met and head dipped. 

Azula walked out past her, the display of deference giving her mood a boost. She stopped just outside the door where two guards were stationed on either side of the hallway, waiting. 

“Well?” she questioned impatiently when they failed to fall into formation.

“Apologies, Princess,” one of them piped up, clearing his throat. “We have instructions to wait for the Kyoshi Warriors.”

Azula rolled her eyes, but she was not forced to wait long. Just then, two Kyoshis turned a corner and glided down the hall toward her. Azula recognized Suki immediately, though it had been a while since the leader of the Kyoshi Warriors had been assigned to guard her. The other girl was someone Azula was familiar with as well, though she could not have recalled the girl’s name if she cared to try.

Suki reached for her belt as she approached and pulled a pair of manacles off it, holding them up for Azula to see. “Fire Lord’s orders,” she announced curtly.

Azula’s eyes narrowed. “Where is the _Fire Lord_? We had an agreement.”

“He’s waiting outside,” Suki countered. “And the agreement was no straitjacket. That was it,” she added, shaking the manacles so the metal clanked together. 

Heat washed through Azula, and she was keenly aware of just how free she was in that moment. She could take the Kyoshis and the guards with her eyes closed and probably escape the building before Zuko would even be alerted to the commotion. _But then what?_

Gritting her teeth, Azula lifted her hands with her wrists together. 

“Nope,” Suki shook her head. “Behind your back.” She twirled one finger in a circle, indicating for Azula to turn around. 

Almost imperceptibly, the second Kyoshi shifted her weight as if preparing for a fight. Azula envisioned flames to throw her off her guard and buy just enough time to generate lightning and send a bolt straight through Suki’s smug face. She took a deep breath.

“I think I’m conceding enough here. You can come put those on me yourself.” 

Suki studied her for a moment, then cautiously advanced and maneuvered behind Azula. The tension from the Kyoshis and the guards was palpable, and it somehow soothed her, made it easier for her to calmly place her arms behind her back and allow Suki to chain her. 

Outside, they found Zuko pacing beside his palanquin as he waited. Azula squinted against the afternoon sun. It was strange to be outside the dismal walls of the institution after so long. 

“You ready?” Zuko asked as he approached, and Azula wasn’t sure if he was addressing her or those tasked with handling her.

“No,” she retorted anyway. “I’m just out here in chains for the fun of it.”

Zuko looked weary, and the thought that being Fire Lord was weighing on him gave her a fleeting feeling of glee. 

“Let’s just go, alright? And if you make one wrong-”

“Yes yes, you’ll throw me in a cell in a straitjacket and leave me there forever, blah blah, I know,” Azula cut him off. She shook off his attempt to assist her into the palanquin, climbing in and resting against a cushion opposite Zuko’s seat. 

“Are you sure you’re alright?” she overheard Suki questioning Zuko before he climbed in after her. 

“It’s fine,” he answered, but his voice was strained. 

Azula smirked at the Kyoshi Warrior before the light privacy veil fell closed behind Zuko. She watched the girls take their positions on either side of the palanquin before their little procession began. 

“Isn’t this nice. Just like old times,” Azula’s voice lilted in a sing-song tone, mocking her brother. Zuko didn't reply, but he was watching her like a hawk. “It certainly took you long enough to make this meeting happen,” she continued. “I was beginning to wonder if you’d forgotten all about poor Mother.” 

“ _You_ are the reason this took so long to happen, and you know that,” Zuko answered then, clearly agitated. “I’ve been visiting Father regularly, trying to get him to talk. If you weren’t such a violent, selfish, manipulative-” 

“Oh, really?” Azula cut him off. “I thought it was because you were too busy running around in the colonies with the Avatar, spreading peace and love wherever you went.”

“You don’t-... wait, how do you know about that?” Zuko blinked at her, taken aback.

“I have my ways.” Azula’s smugness was only making him more angry, and she relished it. “Really, I’m quite surprised at you. Prioritizing some colonial peasants over your own family,” she tsked. 

“You have _no idea_ what it’s like to be Fire Lord and have this kind of responsibility,” Zuko nearly shouted. “I have to think about not only this whole nation, but the whole world too after what we spent the last hundred years doing to it.”

“You’re right, of course,” she cajoled. “I have no idea what it’s like to be Fire Lord.” _Yet._ “Now calm down, Zuzu. You don’t want to be all shaken up when visiting Father.”

_Azula! Leave your brother be. Why do you insist on being cruel?_

Ursa sitting beside Zuko, coddling him as if he were some sort of small wounded animal, intensely annoyed Azula. At least she could still revel in watching him steam as a result of her poking and prodding. It had always been easy to get under his skin, and that hadn’t changed.

They spent the rest of the ride in silence, and Azula took the opportunity to observe the outside world that she hadn’t seen in over a year. Despite the appearance that nothing much had changed, Azula knew that wasn’t the truth. With Zuko as Fire Lord, things were different and would continue to change as long as he remained. His weakness would be the downfall of the Fire Nation. To her dismay, the citizens of their capital did not seem to share her feelings about the new Fire Lord. The royal palanquin was recognized as they moved through the streets from the asylum, and numerous citizens stopped and waved, excitedly pointing out the procession to their neighbors. Some even fully bowed as they passed. Their enthusiasm for their Fire Lord grated on Azula’s nerves.

By the time they reached the prison, Azula was feeling anxious herself. After all, she hadn’t seen her father since the day he left to destroy the Earth Kingdom once and for all and left her in charge as Fire Lord. She knew what had happened to him in the aftermath, but somehow the knowledge that he was no longer a bender didn’t quell her nerves. She allowed Zuko to help her down from the palanquin this time, worried she might trip and fall thanks to the awkwardness of her arms being confined behind her back. Being shackled in front of Fire Nation guards was humiliating enough. 

They were greeted by the warden at the gate, a stout man with a beard whom Azula did not recognize. Zuko must have discharged his father’s officials and installed new people in their positions, she realized, a surprisingly wise move on his part. While she wondered what sort of people Zuko might have chosen, the warden surprised her by bowing to her as well as to Zuko, looking her in the eyes, and referring to her by her proper title.

Flanked on either side by the Kyoshi Warriors and the guards, Azula and Zuko were led into the prison by the warden, who droned on to Zuko about the technicalities of changes they were implementing in their system, apparently at his request. She feigned disinterest, but she made note of every word. She’d been very familiar with the prison system before her own captivity, and she knew it was in her best interest to be aware of whatever changes were being made. Just in case.

Finally, they arrived at the most secure section of the prison. Zuko guided Azula in after the guard at the door opened it for them, and the Kyoshis followed. The warden and the regular guard waited at the door at Zuko’s request. The block of cells was strangely quiet, and Azula wondered if it was empty with the exception of their father. When they reached Ozai’s cell, Zuko asked the Kyoshi Warriors to remain at the door. 

“Are you sure you don’t want us to come in?” Suki asked, eyeing Azula mistrustfully.

“I’m sure. This is a family matter,” Zuko affirmed. “Don’t worry so much, Suki. I’ve got this.”

Zuko opened the heavy metal door and escorted Azula into the dimly lit cell. She was faced with a row of bars and, behind them, a haggard man sitting cross-legged on the ground with a blanket over his shoulders. 

Ozai lifted his head as they approached, and he smiled when he saw Azula, but he said nothing. Zuko cleared his throat awkwardly, as if expecting something of them. Azula merely observed her father coolly, whatever anxiety she had felt dissipating as she stared down at him in his cell. He looked smaller than she remembered him. Less proud without his royal finery. Weak without his bending.

There was a small wooden table and chair on their side of the bars, and Zuko pulled the chair over for Azula. She sat and remained silent.

“Well, you wanted to see her, so here she is,” Zuko began, sounding like a stupid little boy. 

Ozai ignored him. Azula followed his lead, and would do so for as long as it took. Zuko would break before either of them did, of that she was sure. Her destiny, which had for so long eluded her, was within her grasp again. All she needed to do was wait.

* * *

  
  


“That was _so much fun_!” 

Ty Lee was practically screaming as she skipped down the beach and turned multiple handsprings in the sand. Azula watched her, almost grinning ear to ear herself. The evening which had begun so wretchedly had turned out to be sensational. 

“Ugh, _Ty Lee_ , please! You’re hurting my ears,” Mai complained, walking just behind Azula, hand-in-hand with Zuko. 

“Leave her be, Mai,” Azula scolded. “If it weren’t so undignified I might be tempted to cartwheel back to the house myself.” She folded her arms across her chest and rubbed her bare arms as the chilly evening breeze picked up along the shoreline. 

“It was pretty fun seeing the looks on those jerks’ faces when we trashed their lame party,” Zuko agreed, in uncharacteristically good humor as well. 

“Did you see the look on Chan’s face when he realized who Azula and Zuko are?” Ty Lee giggled, twirling her way down the shore. “I don’t know what was worse for _poor wittle Chan_ , the fact that he missed his chance with the Princess or the fact that we wrecked his dad’s beach house and there’s nothing he can do about it!”

Azula waved a hand nonchalantly. “He’s an idiot, and he deserved it.” She would never admit it aloud, but Ty Lee’s praise did help soothe the sting her pride had suffered earlier in the evening. It was a balm second only to the sight of Chan wailing like a baby when he realized how much trouble he was going to be in with his father.

“I’ve gotta hand it to you,” Mai interjected. “That was a pretty great idea. Nothing like random destruction to top off a night of baring our souls around a fire.”

“Ah but it wasn’t random, Mai. It was perfectly calculated,” Azula smirked.

Ty Lee laughed at that, and Azula rolled her eyes as she heard the distinct sound of lips smacking behind her. 

“You know, for two such mopey grumps, you’re both unfortunately comfortable with public displays of affection,” Azula commented as they finally reached the pathway to Lo and Li’s little beach house. 

“It’s not public,” Zuko protested. “It’s just you and Ty Lee.” 

“And I don’t mind,” Ty Lee chimed in, earning a scowl from Azula. 

“Whatever,” Mai huffed. “We’re going for a walk anyway.”

“We are?” Zuko questioned, and Mai smacked his arm. “Oh, right, we are!” he laughed awkwardly, wrapping an arm around his exasperated girlfriend. 

Ty Lee was leaping up the porch steps, gracefully as a dancer, and she stopped and spun in a circle at the top. “Oh, look at the moon!” she exclaimed theatrically. “It’s just _so_ romantic.”

“We’re leaving,” Mai insisted with a grimace. “Don’t wait up,” she added over her shoulder as she and Zuko headed back down toward the shoreline. 

“Don’t step on any jelly-crabs or fall into a tide pool,” Azula called back sarcastically before following Ty Lee up the steps. 

Inside the bungalow, the girls found a bowl of fresh fruit on the table and a single lamp turned low. Despite its solitary glow, they could see well enough by the light of the full moon that poured through the open doors from the balcony. Azula stretched and yawned, kicking off her sandals at the doorway. 

“Lo and Li must have gone to bed,” she surmised. “I’m going to go change.”

“Okay!” Ty Lee flopped onto the nearest low sofa and grabbed a piece of fruit from the bowl. “I’m going to stay up for a little while. I’m too wound up to sleep.”

Azula went to the small room the girls were sharing and lit a candle so she could find her belongings. She quickly stripped off the heavy plate necklace and belt she had worn to the party, then exchanged her top and skirt for a light, loose robe. She removed her hairpiece and picked up her comb, fiddling with it for a moment before trying to run it through her hair. She sighed as it snagged on a tangle of her dark tresses almost immediately. Frustrated, she walked back out of the room and into the common area. Ty Lee was still lying on the sofa, her long legs dangling over the edge and swinging as if in tune with music only she could hear.

“Ty Lee, go wake up Lo or Li for me and tell them I need my hair brushed out. It’s all tangled.” 

Ty Lee swung herself into an upright position and popped the last bite of her fruit into her mouth. She chewed it quickly and swallowed, looking toward the short hall that led to the old twins’ bedrooms with a frown. 

“I... feel bad waking them up,” Ty Lee hedged. “Hey, why don’t you just let me do it? I’m good with hair, I promise. No reason to bother the old ladies when I’ve got two perfectly good hands,” she said as she wiggled her fingers and grinned up at Azula. 

“Alright then,” Azula shrugged. “But go wash your hands first. The last thing I need is pear juice in my hair.”

“On it, Princess,” Ty Lee pantomimed a salute and skipped over to the wash basin. She quickly washed and dried her hands. “Let’s go out on the balcony” she suggested, and when Azula didn’t object she stepped out in the cooler night air. She picked up several of the cushions that were placed around the low dining table and stacked them, then sat down and dropped one pillow in front of her for Azula, tapping it with her foot and holding out a hand for the comb.

“No tugging,” Azula warned as she handed over the comb and settled herself down on the pillow in front of Ty Lee.

“I’m not dumb, Azula,” Ty Lee complained, but she picked up a strand of hair and gave it a playful pull. 

“What did I just-?!” Azula whirled around, lifting a hand to her head where Ty Lee had pulled. 

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, it was just a joke!” Ty Lee held both hands up defensively, but she pressed her lips together as if she were holding in laughter.

“You’re not funny,” Azula scowled and turned back around. “Now do it properly.”

Ty Lee picked up a section of Azula’s hair and began gently brushing through from the ends up, clearly taking care not to actually allow it to pull. Azula closed her eyes and leaned back against Ty Lee’s knees. When Ty Lee hand finished removing the tangles, she began running the comb from Azula’s scalp all the way down the length of her hair.

“That actually feels really nice,” Azula sighed. “And at least you don’t smell like…” she waved a hand, “whatever that is that old ladies smell like.”

That elicited a giggle from Ty Lee. “I should hope not. You have such beautiful hair,” she added, and Azula belatedly realized that at some point Ty Lee had dropped the comb into her lap and was simply combing through her hair with her fingers. She almost complained, then decided against it. It felt just as nice either way.

“Tonight was just so much fun,” Ty Lee babbled on. “It reminded me of how much fun we used to have. Like in school, and when we’d have sleepovers in the palace and play pranks on Zuko and the servants. We haven’t had fun like that in… I mean, we’ve had _some_ fun the last few months for sure, and I’m honored you wanted me to help you on your mission, but it’s not the same when you’re trying to hunt an Avatar and conquer a whole city, you know? And don’t take this the wrong way, but you’ve just been so serious lately. I know you have a lot of pressure on you, but tonight things felt more like they used to be. I guess what I’m saying is it was nice to see you let your hair down a little.” Ty Lee emphasized her point with a swish of her fingers through Azula’s hair. 

“Hmmm,” Azula hummed, half in agreement as she was only half listening. Ty Lee’s torrent of words melded with the distant rolling of the waves into the shore, a backdrop for her turbulent thoughts. Their forced vacation _had_ turned out to be better than she had imagined, even if she had not been so resentful of being sent away as Zuko had. It would soon be over though, and the reality of their lives awaited them. Her destiny was waiting, and Azula could feel that her time was drawing near. Zuko’s outburst on the beach earlier that evening had been a satisfactory confirmation of his deep unhappiness, and she was nearly certain it would only be a matter of time before he cracked. She couldn’t help but worry about what would happen when he did though. The fact that she had dared lie to her father about a matter so important nagged at her. If he found out the truth, what would he say? What would he _do_? If Zuko did something rash and found himself banished again-or worse-the Fire Nation crown would belong to her, as it was meant to. What other choice would their father have but to make her his heir then? She knew she was his favored child, she always had been, and she knew he would have chosen her for his heir already if the Fire Nation’s customs and traditions didn’t complicate the matter. But what would he do if he found out she had deceived him and, worse yet, may have even failed to eliminate the Avatar? Would that change things? Would she fall from favor like Zuko? The very idea made her feel sick. She had spent her entire life molding herself into the person who would be most worthy to lead their glorious nation. Most worthy of the title Fire Lord. Most worthy of their father’s...

“Are you awake?” 

Azula opened her eyes to find Ty Lee leaning over and peering down at her, poking her on the tip of her nose. She had relaxed so far that her head was nearly resting in Ty Lee’s lap.

“Oh! I thought you fell asleep,” Ty Lee laughed, pulling her hand back before Azula could swat it away. 

“I almost did,” Azula mumbled, sitting up fully and stretching. 

“See, told you I’m good with hair,” Ty Lee beamed at her. 

“You are, I’ll give you that,” Azula affirmed, running her fingers through her silken locks with satisfaction. “Aren’t you going to take your braid down?” she asked as Ty Lee picked up the comb from her lap and set it aside. 

“Oh, I think I’ll just wait and ask Mai to help me. It’s probably really tangled after all of that action tonight.” Ty lee smirked and gave the air a series of pointed jabs.

“No.”

Ty Lee blinked at her. “No what?”

“I’ll do it,” Azula asserted, holding out her hand for the comb with an imperious air. “It can’t be all that hard, and who knows long it will be before Mai gets in.” 

Ty Lee stared at her as if she’d grown a second head. “You really want to?” she asked with uncertainty. She was acting as if the offer was some sort of a trap, and Azula found it irritating.

“Do you think I’d offer otherwise?” Azula shot back impatiently, quirking a brow. “Give me the comb and come sit here before I change my mind.”

“Well… okay then! Do you want me to go get my own comb, or…?” 

“Just _sit_ ,” Azula commanded as she stood up and switched places with Ty Lee, who handed her the comb and crossed her legs as she sank onto the lowest cushion.

Azula pulled Ty Lee’s long rope of a braid into her lap and began undoing the ties at each end. When she successfully freed the hair from the ribbons, she began weaving her fingers into the braid itself to unravel it. She felt Ty Lee wince when she got caught in a tangle and pulled. 

“Sorry,” she muttered, working her fingers through the knot more gently.

“S’okay,” Ty Lee answered. “You’re doing great!”

“Your hair is ridiculously long. I don’t know how you manage it,” Azula grumbled, though to herself she couldn’t help but note how soft and shiny her friend’s hair was. The braid accentuated the natural waves in Ty Lee’s hair. It reminded Azula of a low tide, when the dark waves rolled in gently to the shore. 

Ty Lee sighed as she settled in and allowed Azula to work the comb through her hair. If Azula had managed to accidentally tug too hard again, Ty Lee showed no signs of it. 

“It really is perfect here, isn’t it?” Ty Lee mused, gazing up at the moon with a silly, dreamy look on her face. “I think I could be happy staying here forever, just us… you and me and Mai and Zuko. We could play ball on the beach and catch some rays every day. We could go sailing or even surfing! Or we could do nothing but laze around and eat fruits and pies,” she giggled. “We could hike up the mountain and see the whole island from the top. We could go see plays in the evenings and take walks on the beach, or we could crash more parties and make everyone hate us! But it wouldn’t matter because we would all have each other. Don’t you think you could be happy here forever?”

Azula absently wound a strand of Ty Lee’s hair around her finger, considering the question. She remembered what Lo and Li had said about Ember Island having the power to reveal a person’s true self and wondered if there was any reality in which she would be satisfied with the sort of life Ty Lee was imagining. No war or politics or thrones. No vying for power and position. No ambition. Picking on Zuko simply because that’s what brothers and sisters do. Teasing Mai, because she made it so easy to and because she secretly liked the attention. Terrorizing stupid boys with Ty Lee for the fun of it and brushing each other’s hair on the balcony after a long, lazy day. Just sunshine in the mornings and cool ocean breezes at night, and bonfires and parties and plays. Just them, forever. 

Something buried deep within Azula ached, and she allowed it to just for a moment. The back of her eyes burned, and she blinked rapidly. Shame set in then, and she berated herself for giving even one breath to such a weakness. 

“Azula?”

Ty Lee had pivoted enough to lean her forearm across Azula’s knees, enabling her to look up at her face. Azula cleared her throat and released her grasp of Ty Lee’s hair, banishing whatever absurd sentiments had almost taken hold of her. 

“That’s all well and good for you,” Azula finally answered, gazing down at the girl with a forced determination. “You’re just Ty Lee. Once this war is over and I am no longer in need of your services, you can run off back to the circus or wherever else in the world you’d like. You can do whatever you want. It’s different for me. My destiny was chosen for me the day I was born.”

“But that’s not true!” Ty Lee argued, placing a hand atop one of Azula’s which now rested in her lap. “Now that Zuko has restored his honor, he’s the Crown Prince again and he’ll be the Fire Lord someday, and when the war is over you can choose what you want for your life. You can be free too.”

Azula pushed to her feet so abruptly that Ty Lee almost fell over.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about!” she shouted, swift rage coursing through her. “You don’t understand, and you never will!”

She swept past her stunned friend and marched back inside the house and into her bedroom, leaving Ty Lee alone with the moonlight and her foolish dreams of an eternity on Ember Island.

* * *

Half an hour. That’s how long it took for Zuko to break. Pathetic. 

When Zuko finally figured out that she and Ozai were not going to speak to each other in his presence, he threatened to remove Azula and send her straight back to the institution. An empty threat of course, as he surely knew the only prayer he had of finding their mother was if Ozai would open up to Azula. And Ozai would not do so until Zuko left them alone.

Zuko stormed out of the cell, and before the door slammed behind him Azula could hear Suki protesting the idea of leaving them alone together. Her strident whinging was muffled to the point of being unintelligible with the door closed between them though. That was good. 

“So,” Ozai began once they were alone. “You intend to help Zuko find your mother?”

“Yes,” Azula replied, trying to gauge his intentions. It was plain that those intentions did not include any amount of concern for her welfare, she thought bitterly. What had she expected? A tearful reunion? That he would want to know if she was being treated well? His callousness stung, and she hated that it did. 

“Why?” he queried, his gaze sharp and calculating.

“That’s my business,” Azula answered.

“Not if you want my help, it isn’t.”

She could tell he was angered by her response, but she steeled herself against any reaction.

“If I’m to have any chance of freedom, I need to cooperate with him,” Azula offered.

“And what would you do with your freedom if you gained it back?” Ozai pushed. 

Azula contemplated that for a moment. She knew what she would do with it, of course, but caution bid her keep the truth to herself, and curiosity made her lie.

“I don’t know. I can’t predict the future,” she replied with as much sincerity as she could muster. Her apparent indecision seemed to anger Ozai further.

“The throne was _your_ destiny, and it could still be.”

“What if it can’t?” she challenged, leaning forward in her seat.

Ozai looked disgusted. “I didn’t think I’d raised a pathetic quitter.”

“And I didn’t think I’d been raised by one, but here we are.” Azula was almost shocked by her own insolence, but the knowledge that there was nothing her father could do to her now gave her a thrilling sense of power.

“The Avatar took away my bending,” Ozai snarled. “ _You_ have no such excuse! You let yourself be beaten by a Water Tribe peasant, and now look at you. My own daughter, pride of the Fire Nation, _committed to an insane asylum!_ ”

Azula inhaled deeply and sat back in her chair. Ursa stood in the corner of the room, scolding Ozai for speaking to her that way. _Oh_ , now _you care? Hilarious_. Azula bit her tongue to keep herself from addressing her mother in front of her father. Unable to practice the more gentle exercises Doctor Ido had taught her to keep her footing in reality, she settled for digging her nails into her palms where they were clenched behind her back. 

“And you let yourself be beaten by a bald child,” Azula dared to assert when she was confident she could control herself, her voice calm and even. “But none of that matters now. All that matters is where we go from here.”

One of Ozai’s eyes twitched, and she was certain that if he had not lost his bending he would have tried to give her a scar to match Zuko’s. Her father was capable of pragmatism too though, she knew, and his situation was worse than hers. She watched and waited, and sure enough he choked back his rage and his pride.

“Where we go is back to how things were before, how things were meant to be, if you’re capable of doing exactly as I say,” Ozai ground out. “Once you manage to do what needs to be done, you will free me from this cell and we’ll rally my supporters. We’ll take back the Fire Nation and restore order. I will be Fire Lord once more, and you will be my heir. We will rebuild, and when the time comes, we will commence with our plans for the rest of the world.”

Azula knew that she ought to play the obedient daughter, nod along and agree to whatever her father said. But there he sat, behind bars and no longer a bender, telling her how things would be _after_ as if she had no say in the matter. It raised her ire, and Azula could not restrain herself.

“And just what makes you so sure that I will free you _after_ _?_ What’s to keep me from leaving you here while _I_ rule as Fire Lord, as I was meant to?”

Ozai’s gaze narrowed, considering her for a moment before he replied. “Because you will need me. The entirety of the nation knows you've been sent to an asylum. Do you think they'll follow you blindly after that? Do you think they'll allow themselves to be led by a crazy fifteen year old girl? _No._ You've been disgraced. Your only chance of being Fire Lord now is with time, redeeming yourself at my side. And what's more? If you left me here, it would only be a matter of time before you’d come crawling back begging for my guidance. Just like your brother already has.”

Azula smothered her fury, using every ounce of her will to maintain her composure and ignore her father's taunting. “Has he now?” she mused aloud, head tilting to the side. 

“He has,” Ozai reiterated, leaning forward and grasping the bars between them, “and if you think you would not do the same, then you don’t know yourself as well as you think you do. So, though your impudence has given me reason to doubt your worthiness, I’m going to trust that you still have enough sense to do as you are told. I’m going to give you the key to taking down the usurper.”

Azula leaned forward in her chair, a fire sparking within her golden eyes. 

“I’m listening.”


	4. Chapter 4

“Well?” Zuko queried anxiously as they walked together back down the hall of the prison when Azula had finished speaking with their father. 

Azula halted, glancing pointedly between the two Kyoshi Warriors attending them. “It’s a family matter, remember, Zuzu?” she intoned sweetly. Suki was glaring at her, obviously disapproving of the entire situation. 

Zuko sighed. “Would you two please go ahead and wait with the guards?” 

The girls exchanged glances, then walked on past the siblings. “I’ll be watching,” Suki warned, casting a look back over her shoulder at Azula. 

Waiting until they were out of earshot, Azula observed Zuko. She could feel the nervous energy pouring off of him. He was staring at her intently, and once the Kyoshi Warriors were far enough away he prompted her again.

“ _Well_ ,” Azula began, “I know how to find Mother. You’re welcome.” 

“Where is she?!?”

“I said I know _how_ to find her, not exactly where she is,” Azula corrected him, watching his expression fall. 

“What does that mean?” Zuko pressed, suddenly grabbing her by the arm. “Azula, please, talk to me. Explain.”

She smiled up at her brother then, feeling like a predator watching its prey fall into a carefully laid trap. “It means that you are going to have to do some things for me if you want to know what I know. It means if you want to see Mother again, you’re going to take me back to the palace. Tonight.”

“No. No way. Absolutely not,” Zuko protested, stepping back from her.

“Then send me back to the asylum, Zuko, or just throw me in here with Father and lose the keys. But I swear to you that if you do, I’ll never tell you what I know, and you will _never_ see her again.”

“I’ll have you put back in a straitjacket!” Zuko threatened, his voice quavering with emotion. “I’ll…I’ll have Aang take your bending away!”

Azula lifted her shoulders. “The choice is yours. I go back to the palace, or I will never breathe a word of what I know, and neither will Father. We’ll take the secret to our funeral pyres, and you know we will.”

Zuko began pacing, and Azula noticed that the Kyoshis were lingering by the doorway at the far end, clearly concerned by Zuko’s shouting.

“Look,” Azula sighed, “if you were letting your brain guide you rather than your emotions, you would know that the palace is really not all that different than the asylum where I’m concerned. You have guards everywhere in the palace. You have the Kyoshi Warriors, more of them, in fact. You can have me guarded night and day, just like in the asylum. By the way, if I really wanted to escape or hurt anyone, it would have happened the day the straitjacket came off. Did you _really_ think it's the security at that place keeping me there?” she laughed. “I’ve stayed because it was in my interests to stay and cooperate with you. It still is. So give me the dignity of my old room in the palace back, and I will work with you to find Mother.”

Zuko was rubbing a hand over his face, distressed and uncertain, but Azula trusted he would see reason. She clasped her hands behind her back, the slack causing the manacle chains to clang together, and she waited. 

  
  


* * *

“This is a _bad_ idea. This is _such_ a bad idea!” Suki was complaining aloud for the hundredth time since they left the prison. They’d taken the palanquin to the palace, and Zuko had sent a guard back to the institution to notify them of the change in Azula’s accommodations. 

“I don’t have any choice,” Zuko replied, defending his decision for the hundredth time. 

“He really doesn’t, so you should probably just get off his back and worry about doing your job, Suki,” Azula chimed in, eliciting a scowl from the girl that was visible even through all of her layers of makeup. 

“Don’t _you_ tell me how to do _my_ job, you-”

“Alright, enough, please!” Zuko pleaded as they climbed the remaining palace steps and stopped outside the huge, ornate doors. The guards opened the door with deferential bows to the Fire Lord, and Zuko walked inside. 

Azula cleared her throat, unmoving. 

“What now?” Zuko asked, turning back to look at her. “Isn’t this what you wanted?”

“I’m not walking into _my own home_ in chains, Zuko,” she stated calmly. Everyone was staring at her, including the guards, but she fixed her gaze on Zuko’s, daring him to deny her. Repeating her previous threats felt unnecessary, so she merely lifted a brow, the implication in her expression enough to communicate to her brother just how serious she was.

“No, no, _no!_ ” Suki interjected before Zuko could respond. “Zu-... _Fire Lord_ , all due respect, but this is a _terrible idea_.”

“Unchain her, Suki,” Zuko commanded quietly. 

“Unchain who- _gah!_ ” an irritatingly familiar voice rang out from within the palace. Azula broke her stare down with her brother to find the Water Tribe oaf with the boomerang appearing behind him, staring at her slack-jawed. _Wonderful_. 

Azula looked Sokka over, her upper lip curling in distaste. “Ugh. What is _he_ doing here, Zuko?” she demanded. “You just couldn’t keep yourself from infesting this place with commoners, could you?”

“What am _I_ doing here?” Sokka responded, still staring at her with an idiotic mixture of horror and indignation written on his face. “ _I_ was _invited_ here by _the Fire Lord_. Oh! _And_ my girlfriend _works_ here,” he drawled while pointing emphatically at Suki. “So a better question is, what are _you_ doing here?”

“This is _my home_ , you pea-brained-”

“Stop it!” Zuko cut her off, slashing his hand through the air. “All of you, please, just… _stop_.” He pivoted to face Sokka. “I’ll explain later, okay? I just need you all to trust me a little bit here.”

“Trusting _you_ isn’t the problem,” Suki pointed out, glowering at Azula.

Approaching footsteps caught Azula’s attention, and she saw at least half a dozen Kyoshi Warriors approaching from the same direction from which Sokka had appeared. She noticed them before they noticed her, and she stiffened when she recognized the Warrior with the long, bouncing braid leading the group.

“What’s all the commotion?” Ty Lee asked. She froze when she saw Azula standing behind Suki.

“Well isn’t this turning into a lovely little reunion,” Azula remarked, casting a taunting smirk toward her former friend before addressing Zuko again. “Let me guess, the Avatar is here too?”

“He’ll be here by tomorrow evening with Katara,” Zuko replied evenly. “So if you had any ideas about pulling anything… well, I’d rethink them if I were you.”

“Oh, _perfect_. The whole gang back together, hm? One big happy family,” her voice dripped with sarcasm. 

“Actually no,” Sokka corrected her with an uplifted finger. “Toph is busy trying to teach metal bending. Crazy right?”

“ _Sokka_ ,” Suki exclaimed, turning to her boyfriend in exasperation. “A little discretion, maybe?”

“Ohh,” he winced. “My bad.”

“Interesting,” Azula intoned. Vexing as he was, perhaps Sokka’s presence would prove useful to her after all. “So,” she hedged, directing her attention back to her brother, “where’s Mai? It wouldn’t be a party without our favorite wet-blanket.”

Everyone exchanged awkward glances then, and Zuko appeared agitated.

“That’s none of your business, Azula,” he answered sourly.

She narrowed her eyes, her curiosity piqued, but before she could press the matter further Ty Lee piped up again.

“Excuse me, I don’t mean to be rude, but would _anyone_ care to explain what’s going on here?” Several of the other Kyoshi Warriors chimed in in agreement, and all of them were watching Azula cautiously.

“Azula is going to help me find our mother,” Zuko responded. “In return, I’m allowing her to come back home - _on a trial basis_ -” he emphasized with a pointed look at Azula, “and we’ll see how things go.” He was looking at Ty Lee almost apologetically then, who for her part had crossed her arms over her chest and did not appear pleased. 

“That’s a _really bad idea_ ,” Ty Lee muttered, more to herself than to Zuko, but Suki clearly heard her and mouthed a _thank you_ in her direction. 

Azula’s lips quirked upward at the corners watching the display, but she merely tapped her fingertips against the manacles behind her back and waited. For a few moments that seemed like an eternity no one spoke, and the only sound was the faintest _clink clink_ of her nails on metal.

Finally, Zuko sighed and looked at Suki. “Go ahead,” he prompted her again. 

The tension in the air was palpable as Suki, scowling and muttering under her breath, slowly obeyed and moved behind Azula, unlocking the manacles with a sharp click. They dropped to the ground with a clatter as Azula yanked her arms free. Several of the Kyoshis had their hands at their belts, ready to pull out their fans at a moment’s notice. Suki scooped up the manacles and pivoted around to face Azula, her hands at a low ready though she did not touch her weapons. 

Azula smiled and shook her wrists, then circled her arms in a motion that was half stretch, half bending form. Her gaze traveled from one tense face surrounding her to the next until she lowered her arms to rest at her sides and laughed.

“You’re all pitiful,” she scoffed. “Now which of you will be playing babysitter first? I’m tired, and I’ve had more than enough of this nonsense for one evening.”

“I’ll take you to your room,” Zuko replied. 

“Fine,” she shrugged as she swept past her brother and headed through the main hall. Zuko quickly caught up with her, and two Kyoshis she was less familiar with fell into step behind them. Her guards for the evening, she supposed. 

When they had ascended several flights in the royal tower and reached her old bedroom, Zuko had to unlock the door. “No one’s been using it,” he explained.

“Better not have been,” Azula scowled at the thought, and she elbowed her way past him to open the door herself once he succeeded in unlocking it. Two palace guards had fallen in with them as well on their way, and the guards stationed themselves outside the door as Azula and Zuko and the Kyoshis stepped inside the dark room. 

“Oh. I guess we’ll need to get someone to come take care of the lamps,” Zuko realized aloud.

Azula took a deep breath and flexed her fingers. Without warning, flames jumped from her hands as she pivoted to her left and shot a stream of fire. 

“What are you doing?!” Zuko shouted, instinctively moving into a defensive stance, but he stopped when he saw the brazier on the left side of the room jump to life as the charred bits of wood inside its metal frame caught fire. 

“Good thing that was still there,” Azula laughed. “Would have been a shame if that lovely tapestry caught fire instead.” She moved further into the now dimly lit room until she found the windows and threw open the shutters. A cool evening breeze swept into the room, and Azula could faintly hear the chatter of voices from the courtyards below.

Zuko was rubbing a hand over his face wearily. “Don’t push it, Azula. I don’t want you bending for any reason. I’ll send someone to get your lamps in working order.”

Azula moved to the far side of the room where the lamps in question framed her ceiling-length mirror, but she stopped short when her eyesight adjusted enough for her to see the smashed glass. She gasped and moved closer, examining the jagged edges. Curiously, there were no shards of glass left on the site. Someone had cleaned up the shattered mess that surely would have been left behind, as if trying to cover their tracks.

“ _Who did this_?” Azula demanded, whirling on Zuko angrily. “You said no one has been using _my_ room! Who would dare use my room and smash my things?!”

Zuko stared at her in confusion. “No one has been using your room, Azula,” he repeated. “It was like that when I took over. The servants cleaned up in here, then we locked it up and it hasn’t been opened since.”

“I don’t believe you,” she shot back. “Someone smashed my mirror, and if I find out who did it, I’ll-”

_I love you, Azula. I do._

Azula whipped around only to find her mother’s reflection staring back at her sorrowfully, her face dim and distorted in the broken glass. It came flooding back to her then. Her shorn hair on the rug. The crack of the glass when she launched her brush into it. Kneeling in the shattered pieces and weeping as her mind splintered under her mother’s assault. 

“You’re not real,” Azula whispered. She inhaled and exhaled slowly, then reached out and touched the cold glass. She ran her fingertips along the smooth surfaces and the jagged edges alike, willing her mother to disappear. She felt light-headed.

“Azula?” Zuko had moved behind her without her noticing, and he grasped her by the wrist. She allowed him to pull her hand away from the glass.

“I did this,” she confessed quietly, as much to herself as to her brother.

“Yeah, I… I kind of figured,” Zuko answered. He seemed uncomfortable, but he placed a hand at her elbow and gently led her away from the mirror. She let him, suddenly exhausted and wanting nothing more than to sleep. 

“I think I’m going to lie down,” she murmured, finding her way to her old bed and dropping onto it as if she were made of lead. It occurred to her fleetingly that the bedding would likely not have been washed in a very long time, but she didn’t care. Here eyelids were heavy, and her own bed felt like paradise after a year of sleeping on a cot in the asylum. 

“That’s a good idea,” Zuko encouraged as he pulled a cover down for her. “We can worry about everything else tomorrow.” 

Azula was vaguely aware of Zuko giving some sort of instructions to the Kyoshi Warriors, but his words were lost to her as she closed her eyes and sleep claimed her.

* * *

Azula startled awake, feeling as though she had been falling. She bolted straight up and nearly panicked when she didn’t recognize her surroundings. 

“Hey, hey!” a girl's voice came from just beside the open window. “Relax… don’t make me use these…”

Azula blinked and took in her surroundings, quickly remembering where she was. Her bed. Her old room. A low fire glowing in the brazier. A Kyoshi Warrior, fans held at the ready, stationed inside her room. Surely another just outside the bedroom door. 

“What… what time is it?” she demanded of the girl, rubbing at her eyes. It was still dark outside, and the moon was still visible through the open window, but for all she knew she had slept through an entire night and day.

“A few hours to dawn,” the girl replied cautiously. “You’ve been asleep most of the night,” she added. 

Azula looked at the girl then, took in her stance and her wary expression. She recalled the events of the previous day and evening, and her mind raced. Embarrassing as it was that she had had a particularly bad episode in front of Zuko and the Kyoshi Warriors, she could still use the unfortunate situation to her advantage. 

“Oh,” Azula replied, forcing a yawn. “I don’t remember the last time I felt so tired as that,” she added conversationally. 

The girl said nothing, but her defensive stance notably eased.

“I haven’t eaten since before I left the institution yesterday afternoon,” Azula went on, stretching her arms over her head, slowly, so as not to alarm the girl. “Did anyone bring water?”

The Kyoshi shook her head as she finally slipped her fans back into her belt. “No, but I can get something brought here for you. I’m a bit thirsty myself.” 

“You’ve been here all night haven’t you, poor thing,” Azula commiserated. “I would be most grateful if you could ask them to at least get me some water. Food can wait until the morning.”

The girl nodded and stepped away from the window, crossing the room swiftly and rapping on the door. The door creaked as the Kyoshi on the other side opened it, and when the Warrior stationed inside stepped into the stream of light to speak to her sister, Azula took her opportunity.

She slipped out of her bed and crossed to the window in an instant, and she sprang onto the ledge just as she heard one of the Kyoshis yell. She spared an instant to grin at the painted warriors before she jumped. 

* * *

“What do you mean _she jumped out the window?!?_ ” Zuko shouted, his hair sticking up in all directions as he’d been dragged out of bed to deal with the crisis. The commotion had woken Ty Lee before anyone else needed to. Whatever sleep she’d managed to get that night was light and fitful, the knowledge that Azula was sleeping under the same roof deeply unsettling.

Everyone assembled was looking equally disheveled in their night clothes except for the guards on night duty and the two of her sisters who had been assigned to watch Azula that evening.

The girls explained again what had happened, and Zuko immediately commanded two guards to go check the courtyards beneath the tower.

“She didn’t fall to her death, I promise you,” Kaeo tried to reassure him. “We looked out after she jumped, and we didn’t see _anything_.”

“How do you know that for sure?!” Zuko shot back. “It’s dark out there, and she could have landed somewhere you couldn’t see. She’s _not well!_ ”

“She was _laughing at us!_ ” Aimi protested, clearly upset.

“She played you,” Ty Lee interjected, pressing her lips together. 

“I _knew_ this was a terrible idea,” Suki grumbled, fixing a tired and unhappy scowl on Zuko.

The two guards returned and confirmed what the girls had said. Azula was not lying dead or dying somewhere in the courtyard below her window. Zuko ran his fingers through his hair, clearly relieved, yet still anxious and perturbed, as anyone in their right mind would be. Ty Lee would not be surprised if a bolt of lightning struck any of them dead at any given moment.

“Like I said,” Ty Lee reiterated slowly, as if she were speaking to children, “ _we’ve been played_.”

“Well where could she have gone?” Zuko turned to Ty Lee in exasperation. “The whole palace is locked down. She couldn’t have just disappeared into thin air!”

“If I were an insane, diabolical firebending princess, where would _I_ go…?” Sokka mused aloud.

“If she can’t escape, then she would probably just find somewhere to hide, at least for now, right?” another of the Kyoshi Warriors offered.

_Hide. That’s it!_

“I know!” Ty Lee shouted, causing Sokka to jump. “The secret passageways! We used to play hide-and-seek in them all the time when we were kids.”

“Secret passageways?” Sokka repeated, his brows shooting upward. “Like… secret tunnels?”

“Like secret passageways that were built into the palace hundreds of years ago,” Zuko confirmed, smacking a hand to his forehead. “Why didn't I think of that sooner?!”

“Well _let’s go_ then!” Suki chimed in impatiently. “Lead the way, Ty Lee.”

  
  


* * *

  
  


The flame hovering above Azula’s palm lit her way through the pitch black corridors. She knew the maze of passageways like the back of her hand and could easily find her way through them in the dark if she needed to, but she did not need to. And she didn’t have much time. 

After she’d launched herself out of her bedroom window a burst of flame had catapulted her up to a higher level of the tower, and from there to the very top floor. It felt good to bend again, to feel the burst of pure energy flowing through her and the heat of her own flames surrounding her.

One of her favored entrances to the secret passageways was a small door on the roof of the highest level of the tower which had been in disuse for longer than Azula had been alive. She remembered how proud she’d been to show Ty Lee and Mai the secrets of her home on one of the first occasions when they’d been allowed to visit, and they had been duly impressed. Ty Lee’s presence in the palace as one of Zuko’s guards was unfortunate, but she was certain that even if they thought to search the passages, no one could navigate the twists and turns with as much expertise as she could. 

Nevertheless, relief flooded Azula when she reached the door she’d been instructed to find. She remembered trying to open it as a child, but it had proven impossible for her then. Now, she knew the way. Allowing the flame dancing over her palm to die out, she breathed in and pointed her fingers. Her arm circled, and she directed a zap of electric energy into the mechanism on the door. It clicked and groaned, and the door sprang open.

Azula ducked through the low portal, and once inside reignited a flame to light her way. She quickly found torches lining the walls of what looked like a small study and lit them. Now illuminated, the room showed itself to be a covert chamber containing a desk and chair, several books and stacks of papers, maps and strange artifacts covering the walls, and a wooden chest resting atop the desk. On the other side of the room was another small portal, which Azula recognized to be the passage into the Fire Lord’s chambers that Ozai had revealed to her. She found it immensely funny that Zuko had been living on the other side of that wall for the last year, never knowing that the answers he was seeking were so close to where he laid his head to rest. 

Wasting no further time discovering the intricacies of the previous Fire Lord’s secret chambers, Azula approached the desk and pulled the chest close. It was locked, but the key was in a hidden compartment on the underside of the desk, just as Ozai had said. Azula unlocked the chest, flipped open the lid, and began digging through the papers she found therein. They were letters, written in a delicate script. Each one addressed to someone named Ikem. Each one signed with love. From Ursa.

Azula scanned the letters quickly, committing the necessary information therein to memory. Most of it was flowery, love-sick nonsense that turned her stomach to read, but the important things were quickly filed away in her mind. Finally, nearly at the bottom of the pile of letters, she found the one she was looking for. The one she truly needed.

_My dearest Ikem,_

_It’s taken me a long time to admit it, but you were right. I belong with you, and nothing is worth this pain. My one consolation is our son, Zuko. When I look into his eyes, it’s as if I’m looking into yours._

_My thoughts are with you always._

_Love,_

_Ursa_

What a lovely, fortuitous bit of fiction. Azula smirked as she neatly refolded the letter and tucked into the front of her shirt, securing it in place between her skin and her undergarment before she began piling the rest of the letters back into the chest. 

_How do you like that, Mother? Your precious Zuko will be undone by your own hand_. She cackled at the irony of it all as she generated a flame and set the pile of letters alight. Her father had assured her that the letter was a lie concocted by Ursa to catch him stealing the messages she was trying to send to her former lover back in her home village. He had arrogantly declared that there was no way he would have allowed himself to be so deceived by his own wife. Azula almost wished the contents of the letter were true, but it didn’t matter that they were not. _Little bastard Zuzu, illegitimate, no claim to the throne_. The world would believe it in due time, and there were only three people in the world who knew the truth. Someday soon, there would be only two. 

“ _Azula_!”

Zuko’s voice was muffled in the damp corridor, but she could tell he was close. Satisfied that the letters could not be salvaged, Azula dropped into her father’s chair and deftly swung her feet up to rest on the desk, crossing her legs and folding her hands primly in her lap as she waited. 

Ty Lee burst through the door Azula had left open behind her first, a lantern in one hand and the other hand readied in a defensive position. 

“Ah, Ty Lee,” Azula intoned. “Come to join my little bonfire?”

Zuko, Sokka, Suki, and several other Kyoshi Warriors appeared directly behind her, ducking and crowding into the study.

“Azula! What are you doing?!” Zuko cried, lunging for the desk. He tried to bend the flames away before quickly whipping off the sash around his waist and using it to smother the fire within the chest. Little pieces of glowing ash flew up into the air as he resorted to beating out the fire, the charred remains of the clues to finding Ursa.

“I said I’m having a bonfire,” Azula repeated with feigned innocence. “Zuzu, why don’t you go fetch Mai and then it will be just like old times.”

Zuko abruptly grabbed her by the front of her tunic and yanked her up out of the chair. “What. have. you. _done?!_ What was in that box?”

“The key to finding Mother, of course!” Azula crowed triumphantly, grinning down into Zuko’s face. “Now get your filthy hands _off_ me.”

Zuko released her and stepped back, fury and confusion etched on his features. He looked around the room then, as if suddenly noticing their whereabouts. “What is this place? Where are we?”

“Haven’t you guessed?” Azula simpered, smoothing her blouse where it had been wrinkled in Zuko’s grip. “Just beyond that wall are the Fire Lord’s chambers. Father had several rooms like this one scattered all over the palace. You might have known about them if you’d ever played with us when we asked. Isn’t that right, Ty Lee?”

Ty Lee simply glared at her, and it occurred to Azula that it was the first time she had seen her without a full face of Kyoshi makeup since the day at Boiling Rock.

“Woah, this is freaky but…kinda awesome!?” Sokka commented as he examined the room, earning himself an elbow in the ribs from Suki.

“Not the time, Sokka,” she muttered to him.

Zuko began digging through the ashes of the letters, desperate to salvage anything he could. 

“Don’t bother,” Azula waved off his efforts. “It’s all gone.” 

“Why would you do this?” Zuko looked up at her then, and in the wake of his anger she was surprised to see hurt in his eyes. He was looking at her as if he were some small defenseless creature she’d just kicked, and the display of vulnerability annoyed her. She preferred his rage. 

“Because I’m not an idiot,” Azula snapped. “I know how to secure my leverage. The letters in that box would have led you to Mother. Once you had them, what was to stop you from throwing me straight back into a cell and leaving me there?”

“My _honor_ ,” Zuko uttered. “The fact that I promised to give you more freedom if you cooperated. The fact that you’re my family and I’m trying to _help_ you.”

“I don’t trust you,” Azula snarled back. “I’m not fool enough to trust anyone. Now quit your crying. I read the letters before I burned them, and everything you need is right here.” Azula tapped her temple for emphasis. “Rest assured, Zuzu, we’re going to find Mother. And we’re going to do it _my way_.”


	5. Chapter 5

Ty Lee stuck out her lower lip and blew a stray strand of hair out of her eyes as she listened to the plans being laid out. She was lying on her stomach on a low couch in one of the palace’s many common areas, out of uniform since she was technically off duty, her chin propped up in her palms and feet swinging idly behind her. Everything had felt chaotic since Aang and Katara arrived several days earlier, everyone having their own opinions on the situation and their own ideas about what should be done, yet no one actually able to do anything until Zuko’s uncle arrived from Ba Sing Se. Azula had been disconcertingly docile since the incident on her first night back in the palace. She stayed in her room all day and night, asking for nothing but books to read. She exercised on the spacious floor of her room and practiced her firebending forms without ever producing a flame. She ate whatever was prepared for her without complaint and paid no mind to any of the guards or servants. It put everyone even more on edge than it would have had she been difficult and volatile. That was good, though. Maybe they were all finally catching on. Zuko was the only one who knew Azula better than she did, but his judgment where his sister was concerned was very obviously clouded by his feelings. He loved her despite _everything_. He wanted to fix her. To hear him tell it, it was not just because he felt sorry for her, but more so because he knew what he would have become if no one had given him the chance to be something else. Ty Lee wished she could share Zuko’s hope for Azula, but she didn’t. She’d been burned that way before, and she wasn’t about to let it happen again.

“Tea?” 

Ty Lee sat up and smiled at Iroh, graciously accepting the steaming cup he offered her before he moved on to the rest of the group. Uncle Iroh, as all of them had taken to calling him now, had arrived that morning and wasted no time setting about preparations for his role as acting Fire Lord while Zuko would be away, but he still found time for tea.

“So we’ll need most of you to stay here and guard my uncle,” Zuko was saying to the Kyoshi Warriors gathered around the table, “but I would like for at least two of you to come with us.”

“Is that really necessary?” Aang asked. “I mean, you’ve already got me, Katara, Sokka, and yourself. And Appa can only hold so many people.”

“Right, about that.” Zuko hesitated. “Sorry Aang, but we can’t take Appa. We’re traveling by ground.”

“Why?” Aang questioned.

“Because Azula said so.”

“ _Azula said so_?!” Katara cut in, aghast. “Since when does she get to decide that?”

“Since she’s the only one who knows how to find my mom,” Zuko sighed. “I’m sorry, I don’t like it anymore than the rest of you do. But I have to agree to anything reasonable that she asks, otherwise she’ll just shut down or…or who knows what.”

“And you think leaving Appa here and going off on this quest with your crazy, evil sister who's tried to murder all of us multiple times leading the way is reasonable?” Katara prodded.

“It’s fine, Katara,” Aang interjected, ever the diplomat. “We can’t have too many people crowding onto Appa for a long period of time anyway, and this way he can stay here and help look after the palace with Iroh.”

“I’m happy to look after our furry friend for you,” Iroh responded with a grin as he set down the tea tray on the table.

“Well, if you want two of us to come with you, I volunteer,” Suki chimed in. “It’s my duty as the leader of the Kyoshi Warriors, and besides, I’m not leaving Sokka with that maniac.”

Sitting next to her, Sokka made a gushing _aww_ sound before leaning over to kiss her. 

Zuko cleared his throat. “Thank you, Suki. So, that just leaves one more,” he added, looking around at the rest of the girls gathered. “Any volunteers?” He didn’t even bother to look in Ty Lee’s direction.

“Me,” Ty Lee asserted, setting her cup of tea aside. “I’ll go.”

Zuko looked over at her, brows raised in surprise. “You don’t have to do that, Ty Lee. I know how you feel about this whole thing. Someone else can go.”

“No, I do. It has to be me.” She looked around at all of her sisters then and sighed. “Look, Azula is unpredictable, but _knowing_ Azula is half the battle.”

“Half?” Sokka questioned. “Exactly what metrics did you use to come to that conclusion?”

Ty Lee rolled her eyes, placing her hands on her hips. “Okay, maybe not quite _half_ , but it’s important. If you know Azula, you stand a better chance against her. And I’m not willing to risk any of my sisters getting hurt needlessly, so,” she directed her gaze back to Zuko then, determined, “I’m going.”

Zuko nodded. “If that’s what you want. I guess I should go fill her in on the plans before she starts getting testy.” 

“I’ll do it, nephew,” Iroh stepped in. When Zuko tried to object, the old man waved off his concern. “I was going to bring her some tea anyway.” He picked up the tray from the table again and turned to Ty Lee. “Would you mind coming along with me, young lady? It’s been many years since I lived in this palace, and I’m a forgetful old man. I could get lost in this place and never be seen or heard from again,” he laughed.

It was a ridiculous statement, but Ty Lee couldn’t help but smile. She nodded and stood up, waving Iroh along behind her as she headed for the tower. If she was going to have to endure a trip with Azula, she might as well at least start getting used to her again.

When they reached Azula’s chambers, the Kyoshi stationed outside the door gave the courtesy of a knock and waited. Azula’s voice bidding them enter was muffled, but even through the heavy door Ty Lee recognized the tone she’d always used with her servants when she was in one of her better moods. Sing-song and almost lazy, yet still full of royal arrogance.

The Kyoshi opened the door for them and they entered, Ty Lee following Iroh with his tray of tea. Azula’s bedroom looked almost exactly as Ty Lee remembered it, except that her huge mirror was smashed. The vanity beside it had a small hand-held mirror atop it though, along with a comb, an assortment of small pots, and a loose ribbon. 

Azula herself was lounging in a low seat beside the window, holding up a green-jacketed book to read in the sunlight, a second Kyoshi Warrior standing at attention opposite her. She was dressed in her old fashion, muted reds and black with gold trim, and her knee-length boots appeared to have been polished. She looked exactly the same as she would have before everything changed, except that now she wore only the top half of her hair up, and her eyes had dark circles beneath them. Either she wasn’t sleeping well, or all of the nastiness inside her was starting to show on the outside. Still, she was as beautiful as she always had been, though Ty Lee reproached herself for even noticing.

“Ah, Uncle. It certainly took you long enough to get here,” Azula commented, sparing only a glance in their direction before she returned her gaze to the book in her hand and flipped a page. She didn’t acknowledge Ty Lee at all.

“Good tea cannot be rushed,” Iroh explained, setting the tray down on Azula’s vanity. 

“I wasn’t talking about the tea,” Azula scoffed, finally setting her book down. Her gaze landed fully on Ty Lee then, but she still said nothing. Her wordless scrutiny was no doubt intended to make Ty Lee feel small, worry, doubt herself. It made her angry. For so much of her life, Ty Lee had allowed Azula’s every word and mood and whim to dictate her feelings. No more. 

Ty Lee lifted her chin and met Azula’s gaze steadily. “You could try saying _thank you_.”

Azula tilted her head, regarding Ty Lee for a moment, then she turned to her uncle with a sweet smile.

“Thank you _so much_ for your consideration and generosity, Uncle Iroh,” Azula gushed, rising to her feet. “I know I am undeserving of your kindness,” she went on, laying a hand against her chest in self-deprecation. “I’m no Zuko, after all.”

Ty Lee glanced at Iroh in time to catch the nearly imperceptible change in his expression. He seemed almost stricken. She looked between the old man and her old friend, and while she wasn’t sure exactly how, she knew Azula had landed one of her barbs, the kind that only pricked on the surface but risked sinking into the skin and becoming a festering wound.

Iroh decided to ignore the comment and proceeded to inform Azula of the preparations that were being made for their departure the next day. The Princess examined her nails while her uncle spoke, as if bored, but she cast an inscrutable look Ty Lee’s way when Iroh mentioned her name among those who would be accompanying her on the journey.

She was going to regret volunteering for this trip, she could feel it in her bones. 

* * *

  
  


“I thought you hated flowers.”

Ty Lee stood in the doorway of the little shop in the Fire Nation capital, grinning at her best friend. Mai looked up from her work, a sleek blade balanced in her hand. 

“Hey stranger,” Mai smiled back at her, bringing the blade down with a satisfyingly perfect _chop_. She brushed the severed ends of the stems off to the side of her cutting board, then picked up the flowers in front of her and began sticking them into a delicate, painted vase, moving them around with a critical eye. “It gives me something to do so I’m not bored to tears, plus my aunt needed the help,” she explained. “I’ve actually found that flower arrangement is an art, like knife-throwing. And I’ve got excellent cutting skills.”

Ty Lee laughed and moved fully inside the shop, _oohing_ and _aahing_ as she admired her friend's work. Mai really did have a knack for flower arrangement, which was equal parts surprising and funny.

“So, what brings you all the way down here?” Mai inquired as she worked. 

“Just wanted to catch up,” Ty Lee rocked forward on her toes and leaned down on Mai’s workspace with her elbows, resting her chin in her palms. “Also, I wanted to tell you that I’ll, uh, be going away for a little while.”

“Oh?” Mai asked, sounding somewhat disinterested. “Someone taking you on a romantic getaway?” 

“Uhh. Not exactly,” Ty Lee hedged. She took a deep breath before launching into the story about everything that had happened at the palace over the last week. Mai was interested then, so much so that she was staring at Ty Lee as if she’d lost her mind by the time she finished. 

“That sounds like a really dumb idea,” Mai criticized, eyes wide. “And I thought you wanted to stay as far away from Azula as possible, so why would you volunteer to go?”

“Well _apparently_ Zuko’s letting her stay at the palace again anyway, so unless I want to quit the Kyoshi Warriors or try to convince them to move on from being his bodyguards, then I don’t really have much of a choice, do I?”

Mai frowned when Ty Lee suggested the idea of the Kyoshis quitting on Zuko, but she didn’t comment on it. “Still,” she argued. “You don’t have to go on the trip. Let one of the other girls go.”

“No,” Ty Lee asserted, shaking her head. “I can’t risk anyone getting hurt. They already made mistakes dealing with Azula on her first night back. It’s too risky.” 

“But they’re nothing to Azula. She wouldn’t go after them unless they were in her way,” Mai pointed out. “She _would_ go after someone she has a reason to have a grudge against though.”

Ty Lee sighed. “I know, but I’ve already made my decision, Mai. We’re leaving tomorrow.” 

Mai pursed her lips, displeased, but she didn’t argue further. “I’ll bet you’re just going because Sokka is going,” she teased, as if trying to break the tension.

It worked. Ty Lee rolled her eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous. We’re just friends. Plus, Suki is going too,” she laughed.

Mai shook her head and picked up another bunch of flowers, laying them out on the board and beginning to trim the stems.

“Sooo,” Ty Lee began again, changing the subject. “How’s Kei Lo?”

“Fine,” Mai responded flatly, chopping away at the stems.

“Just fine?” Ty Lee pushed.

“Yeah, just fine,” Mai answered.

“You know, I still can’t believe you broke up with Zuko,” she blurted out, unsatisfied with her friend’s lackluster communication skills.

“I don’t want to talk about that,” Mai responded, her eyes trained on her work, lips pressing together. 

Ty Lee was beginning to irritate Mai, she knew, but in the moment she didn’t care. “I mean, it just makes no sense!” She straightened up and threw her hands in the air. “You loved him!”

“Yeah, that was the problem,” Mai shot back with an even _chop chop chop_ of her blade.

Ty Lee frowned. “How could loving someone possibly be _the problem_?” she asked, genuinely confused.

Mai sighed and set her blade down, seeming to realize that Ty Lee was not going to let the subject drop. “Because when you love someone that much, it gives them a sort of power over you. Whether either of you intend it to or not.”

“But Zuko wasn’t like…using that power against you or anything, right?” Ty Lee asked, brow furrowing.

“No.” 

“Then what’s the problem?” she pushed, frustrated. “I mean, love is _good._ In a relationship, love is essential.”

Mai scoffed. “Oh come on. Are you seriously going to tell me that you’ve _loved_ every boy you’ve been in a relationship with since we came back to the capital?”

“Well no, of course not,” Ty Lee protested. “But that’s probably why none of those relationships lasted. And _for your information_ , I haven’t dated _just_ boys since we’ve been here,” she added indignantly. 

“What?” Mai stared at her.

“Never mind,” Ty Lee quickly responded, suddenly wishing she’d kept her mouth shut.

“No, talk to me,” Mai pressed, putting down her blade and giving Ty Lee her full attention. “Who are you talking about?”

Ty Lee chewed nervously on the inside of her cheek for a moment before she relented. If she couldn’t trust Mai, then what was the point of their friendship?

“One of the other Kyoshi Warriors,” Ty Lee admitted, her cheeks flushing as she tried to gauge Mai’s reaction. “Ru Shi. We started dating a little while after Zuko’s coronation, but she went back to her home in the Earth Kingdom after we all decided to become the Fire Lord’s personal guard,” she explained. “She didn’t agree with the decision. We didn’t think we could make it work long distance, so we decided to just be friends.”

“Why are you just telling me about this now? All that time, when I was still around the palace almost every day, and you never said anything.” Mai sounded almost hurt.

Ty Lee shrugged. “I guess I just didn’t know what you would think.”

“I think you should be with whoever makes you happy,” Mai asserted as a matter of fact.

Ty Lee relaxed, feeling foolish for having kept a secret from her friend then. “So, Kei Lo makes _you_ happy?” she redirected, bringing the conversation back around to Mai and her new boyfriend.

Mai didn’t answer for a few lingering moments. She picked up her blade again and resumed chopping the stems of the flowers on her board before she replied carefully. “Kei Lo makes me feel secure, because he feels more for me than I do for him. And I’m content with that security.”

“No offense, Mai, but that’s kind of…sad,” Ty Lee countered.

“It’s not to me,” Mai retorted. “He's simple. Everything with him is easy. It wasn’t like that with Zuko. It’s just…” she put down her blade again and finally looked Ty Lee in the eyes. “It’s too hard to be in love with a complicated person. And it’s even worse when that person is royalty.”

Ty Lee pressed her lips together, wanting to argue but knowing all too well that what Mai said was true. She wished she didn’t know it so well.

“I’m sorry,” she said simply, reaching out to place a hand over her friend’s. “I know it’s not really my business. I just want what’s best for you.”

Mai considered her for a moment, finally relenting with a tired, half smile. “You’re really annoying sometimes, you know that? But I still miss you.”

Ty Lee impulsively reached over and threw her arms around Mai, squeezing her. “I miss you too,” she replied. “And I’ll come see you again as soon as we get back from the trip, I promise.”

“Yeah, you better worry about making it back in one piece first.” Mai draped her arms around Ty Lee and patted her on the back. “I mean it,” she added. “Be careful. Don’t let your guard down for a second.”

“Don’t worry!” Ty Lee assured her friend, “I’ve got this.”

She hoped she sounded more confident than she felt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We can all have a little disaster!Bi Lee coming out to Mai, as a treat.
> 
> In all seriousness, while the main focus of this story is Azula's redemption, redemption does not happen in a vacuum. This being the case, it's important to me to spend some time examining the feelings and motivations of the other characters who are involved in one character's redemption story, whether it's in a full chapter or just a little interlude within a chapter. Not everyone who is involved in Azula's story will get their own POVs, and the POVs will not necessarily be balanced between Azula and other characters (Ty Lee, and anyone else who might end up with their own along the way). These other characters may not be the focus, but they are no less important.  
> Thanks for sticking with me thus far, friends!


	6. Chapter 6

Azula almost turned on her heels and marched straight back to her room when she descended the last steps of the tower to find the Avatar waiting to escort her out of the palace. The boy was noticeably taller than the last time she’d seen him, but he still looked obnoxiously innocent. She briefly considered slapping the pleasant smile he offered her off of his childish face.

“Good morning, Azula!” Aang chirped. “Long time, huh?”

_Deep breaths. Remember the plan._

“You can save the false pleasantries, Avatar,” Azula answered coldly. “It’s enough that I’ve allowed Zuko to bring his little band of miscreants along on our family trip. If you all insist on getting on my nerves, I’ll call the whole thing off and then you can explain to Zuko why he won’t be finding his mother.”

Aang held up his hands, “Okay, okay. I was just saying good morning, but I’ll leave you alone if that’s what you want.”

“It is,” Azula replied brusquely, walking past the boy. Aang quickly fell into step behind her, but he gave her more space than any of the Kyoshi Warriors ever did. Somehow that annoyed her even more. At least the Kyoshis didn’t pretend they weren’t watching her every move.

When they reached the outer courtyard of the palace, they found four komodo rhinos bridled and saddled and loaded up with the necessary supplies for their trip. They also found the rest of the group complaining about their mode of transportation, comparing the komodo rhinos they would be travelling on to the Avatar’s sky bison. The bison in question rested a short distance away with the Avatar’s winged lemur asleep on its back. Iroh was present as well, speaking with Zuko.

“Hey, I love Appa, but you’ve gotta admit that his fur does start to smell a little funky,” Ty Lee was saying as they approached. “Komodo rhinos don’t really smell like anything.” She was out of Kyoshi uniform, as was Suki, both girls dressed more casually for their trip. Both still carrying their fans discreetly in their belts though, Azula noted. Sokka started to argue with her, but the whole group fell silent as they noticed Azula’s approach. 

“Please, don’t let me spoil your fun.” She waved a hand, then turned her attention to adjusting the cylindrical map case which rested against her back and tightening its strap where it ran across her chest. 

“Oh no, wouldn’t dream of it. This is going to be fun, fun, fun,” someone muttered sarcastically beneath their breath.

Azula pivoted to find Katara staring at her with her arms crossed over her chest. The mere sight of the girl sparked something turbulent with her, but she forced herself to focus on the immediate goals and squashed her baser urges. Pointedly ignoring the waterbender, Azula interrupted her brother and uncle’s conversation with an impatient clearing of her throat. 

“If you two are quite finished with your tearful farewells, we need to be leaving. Otherwise we won’t make it to a decent area to rest before sundown.”

Zuko cast an annoyed glance her way, but he conceded and bowed to his uncle. Iroh responded with a pat of his nephew’s back and a reassurance. 

“Don’t worry. Everything here will be fine until you return.”

“Thank you, Fire Lord Iroh,” Zuko answered with a slight smile, which elicited a chuckle from the old man.

Azula rolled her eyes. She scrutinized the awaiting komodo rhinos, and when she was certain she had picked out the best of the bunch, she mounted the beast with a nimble leap into the saddle. The Avatar and Katara picked one for themselves, and Suki and Sokka another. Zuko mounted the last beast, only seeming to realize after he’d settled on its back that no one had considered the last member of their group. 

Ty Lee remained on the ground, looking out of place and uncomfortable as she glanced between the only two animals who remained with single riders. Azula smirked.

“Zuzu! You didn’t think of poor Ty Lee,” she tisked. “This is what happens when you leave arrangements to men.”

“You can ride with me,” Zuko cut in, ignoring Azula as he addressed Ty Lee. “Or we can wait and get another rhino sent up here. It’s up to you.” 

“It’s fine,” Ty Lee shook her head. “I’ll just ride with you. No big deal.” She wasted no further time springing up onto the animal’s back behind Zuko, settling herself onto the back end of the saddle and wrapping her arms around his waist. 

Azula wanted to exacerbate their awkwardness, but all of her taunts stuck in her throat. Suddenly irritated, she picked up the reins before her and snapped them, pulling her beast up to lead the rest. 

“Let’s get this circus on the road,” she huffed. 

As Azula directed her beast towards the gate, everyone else fell in line behind. The Avatar called out a farewell to his bison, and everyone else waved to Iroh. Past the gates of the palace, they proceeded through the quiet streets of the Royal Caldera district then descended the mountain single file toward the Harbor district. Behind her on the road, Azula could hear Zuko complaining to Ty Lee about the fact that they would be forced to ride through the capital in full view of the public in order to reach the main road out. Zuko had wanted to use Appa to fly directly from the palace to the outside of the city and have their transportation awaiting them there, thinking it would be both more discreet and safer for Iroh and everyone else left behind than the little procession they were now embarking on. Azula put her foot down and insisted that she would not ride on the Avatar’s beast. She claimed discomfort with the animal, but the truth was that she wanted the whole of the capital to see their Fire Lord leaving. Whatever rumors and speculations would follow could only help her cause. _Their_ cause, hers and her fathers. 

They passed through Harbor City without incident, though the attention paid them by the bustling crowds near the markets proved unnerving. Not unlike when she had ridden through the streets in the royal palanquin with Zuko, the commoners stopped and pointed and stared and waved and bowed to their Fire Lord. This time, though, Azula was not hidden behind a veil. Leading the group through the streets on her komodo rhino, she was the subject of just as much attention as her brother and the Avatar, if not more. She kept her chin held high and her eyes fixed on the path before her, but she could not escape their stares and whispers. She saw the mothers grabbing their children’s pointing fingers and shooing them away, saw the fear in their eyes. The fear that laced their awe and adoration used to please her, but there was something different about it now. Something rotten. She had become more of a dangerous oddity to be avoided than a glorious princess to be dreaded.

By the time they reached the road out of the capital, Azula wished she had relented and gone with Zuko’s plan for leaving the city. Whatever unrest might fester in the public absence of the Fire Lord hardly seemed worth the humiliation she suffered. Ozai would surely disagree, but then he was not the one who had to endure the scrutiny of the Fire Nation’s citizens after losing the crown before a coronation could even be completed and subsequently being locked away in a madhouse.

Azula tried to forget the ordeal and focus on the task ahead. The road out of the capital was broad and easy terrain for a mile or so, but it quickly narrowed and became more difficult to navigate as it looped around the dormant volcano and led north. She wouldn’t need her maps anytime soon, as she knew the area surrounding the capital almost as well as she knew all of the mazes hidden within the royal palace. 

Several hours passed with little but the distant screaming of hawks to break the sound of the inane conversations happening in the group behind her. Still trailing her, Zuko and Ty Lee were close enough that Azula could make out bits and pieces of their conversation. It bored her thoroughly until she caught a hushed utterance of Mai’s name. Intrigued, she cast a glance over her shoulder and grinned at her brother when he and Ty Lee instantly fell silent.

“Keeping secrets, are we? What happened to us being _family_?” she lamented, shaking her head in mock pity.

“It’s not your business, Azula,” Zuko retorted, pulling his beast up beside hers. “And you’re one to talk about keeping secrets!”

Azula laughed. “You’re ridiculous. I don’t actually care, but I did find it curious that Mai didn’t get involved in this little adventure, and even more so that she didn’t even show up to say goodbye.” She cast a sidelong glance at Ty Lee, who was glaring at her but quickly averted her gaze. Zuko stared straight ahead with his lips pressed together as if he meant to ignore her, but she could almost see the wheels in his mind turning. 

“We broke up, alright? Is that what you want to hear?” he finally spat out. “Now forget about her. She’s got nothing to do with either of us anymore, so leave it be.”

“There, was that so hard?” Azula smirked at him, amused. “I was fairly certain that was the case anyway. Of course, you’re choosing to tell me this now because you’re worried I’m out for revenge, and you’re hoping this sad little outcome will gratify me enough that I’ll forget about it,” she analyzed. “Well, that’s very noble of you, Zuzu, but you can relax. I’m not interested in Mai or any other petty, faithless snakes.” 

She looked directly at Ty Lee as she said it and was rewarded by the sight of her face flushing as red as her collar. Zuko was on edge, looking over his shoulder at Ty Lee. 

“ _Listen_ , you-”

“Ty Lee, don’t,” Zuko cut her off. “It’s not worth it.” He placed a hand over her forearm where it was resting at his side, as if to prevent her from jumping off the komodo rhino and attacking Azula.

“Oh, it’ll be worth it when-”

“Hey guys!” Aangs voice rang out through the trees, interrupting them. 

Azula tore her taunting gaze away from Ty Lee’s wide, furious eyes to see what the commotion was about. The Avatar landed on the back of his komodo rhino and was closing the wings of his staff.

“We’re coming up on a river. Looks like a good place to stop and rest a little.” 

Zuko looked at Azula, as if expecting an argument from her. She shrugged. 

“Let’s do it then,” Zuko confirmed. 

He pulled out ahead on the path with his rhino, and Azula fell in behind them. She stared at the back of Ty Lee’s head as they rode, willing her to turn around, but she never did. It soured Azula’s enjoyment of getting under her skin. 

Sure enough, they soon reached a bridge crossing a river with steep banks on either side. The trees lining the pathway had thinned, so there was plenty of room for them to tie the komodo rhinos off the path and allow them to graze. Everyone jumped down from the beasts, stretched, and moaned about how sore they were. More than one grumbled yet again about how much they would have preferred to travel by sky bison. As if she would have allowed them that sort of advantage _._

Azula took off the map case that was strapped to her back and slung the strap over her shoulder along with her canteen, picked out a small package of dried meats and fruits from the luggage tied to her komodo rhino, and walked several paces away from the rest of the group to sit on the edge of the bank. She unrolled one of her maps while she enjoyed her refreshments and tried to tune out the chatter of the rest of the group. At the rate they were traveling, they should be able to reach Hira’a in several days. That was it. A few days to prepare. A few days to ready herself. If she could do what needed to be done, then within a week everything would be different. The road home would be a road back to her destiny.

“Oh, you think that’s something? Watch _this_!”

Azula jumped as her map was splashed by Sokka hurtling himself into the river. She looked up in disgust to see the Avatar sitting cross-legged mid air, shirtless and laughing, holding himself above the swirling water on a whirling ball of air while an equally shirtless Sokka flailed and spluttered in the river trying to drag himself back to the bank. 

“Watch what you’re doing, you fools!” she snapped, brushing the water droplets from her map. 

“Sorry!” Aang called, and with a fluid motion of his hand the rest of the water that was soaking into her map lifted into the air and disappeared. 

Azula scowled at him, but her expression changed when he turned on his little whirlwind and zoomed over to help Sokka up the steep bank. She saw his scar then, a starburst of pink and red flesh in the center of his back where her lightning bolt had run through him. She knew she was staring, but she couldn’t help herself. It was a physical manifestation of her failures, ugly and twisted and permanent. 

_Is that really all you see? Your failures?_

Ursa was looking down at her, brow furrowed, full of consternation. Azula frowned, irked by her mother’s presence.

 _You don’t see a little boy who almost died? A boy_ you _almost killed?_

“I _know_ you think I’m a monster,” Azula growled beneath her breath. “I did what I had to do. Leave me alone.”

She did what she had to do, and she’d failed anyway. It occurred to Azula that she had the opportunity to fix her mistakes. Killing the Avatar was not part of the plan, at least not now, but then her father hadn’t known that the Avatar would be coming with them. He hadn’t known the boy would be playing in a river, so close to her, his guard lowered. All she needed was one good strike -no, one _perfect_ strike- to eliminate a significant threat to her father’s plot. To correct her mistakes, to redeem herself from her failures. However, to strike now could ruin the rest of their carefully laid plans. What would Ozai want her to do?

 _Why do you still care what your father would want you to do, Azula?_ Sorrow and pity had replaced judgment in Ursa’s eyes. _Why is he so deserving of your loyalty?_

Azula dug her nails into her palms, her pulse racing. “Leave me alone,” she repeated in a hoarse whisper.

 _You don’t really want to hurt that boy._ Ursa was moving closer, her voice clearer and stronger. _He’s not so different from you, you know. None of them are._

“I said _leave me alone!_ ” Azula shouted, picking up a small rock and launching it toward the image of her mother.

It took her a moment to register the silence, and when she did, she realized that everyone was staring at her except Sokka, who had just managed to pull himself over the top of the bank and was looking in the direction she’d thrown the rock, as if seeking the source of her outburst. 

“What are you all looking at?” Azula snarled, pushing to her feet. “Mind your own-”

“Okay, okay,” Zuko stepped in, holding his hands up. “Relax, Azula. It’s fine, we’re all good. If everyone is done here we should start packing it up and get back on the road.” He approached Azula slowly, then bent down and started rolling up her maps, tucking them neatly back into the casing. 

Everyone else followed his lead and began packing up their own meals and assorted belongings, and they all were all careful not to look Azula’s way again. 

All except Ty Lee. She continued staring and didn’t try to hide it, and she didn’t appear confused like Sokka or awkward like Suki or Katara or Aang. She just looked sad.

Azula couldn’t stand it. She swiped her map case and canteen out of Zuko’s hands and stormed back to her komodo rhino, releasing the tether and swinging herself up into the saddle. 

“Keep up or get lost in the forest for all I care,” she barked at the rest of the group, snapping the reins and guiding the lumbering beast back onto the road, over the bridge, and up an increasingly narrow trail into the mountains.

  
  


* * *

  
  


They made camp that night in a valley on the other side of the mountain, having spent the rest of the afternoon navigating a steep road up one side and down the other. They found a small clearing a short distance from the road, tethered and fed and watered their tired beasts, and began setting themselves up for the night. Zuko made a fire, which everyone wearily gathered around with their blankets and their food. Sokka was especially obnoxious in his complaints about his soreness, and Suki laughed at Sokka as he struggled to sit down comfortably, reminding him that she’d warned him against jumping in the river. 

“Well, how was I supposed to know wet pants would make riding those things even more uncomfortable?” he complained.

“Because I warned you about chafing, that’s how,” Suki repeated with a roll of her eyes.

“You could have just asked me to dry them,” Katara pointed out. 

“Yeah, or me!” Aang added. “I dried my pants no problem.”

“Well I didn’t think of that because _somebody_ made us rush to pack up and go,” Sokka grumbled, glancing pointedly Azula’s way.

Azula looked up from where she was setting up her belongings against a log, away from the fire and outside of their circle. She felt a childish urge to stick her tongue out at him, but she settled for calling him an idiot under her breath and going about her business while they continued their chattering. She laid out a mat with a blanket and sat, pulling out her maps again. The sun had long gone down, so she ignited a flame in her palm and used it to check their location. If there were no delays, they would be coming upon a village the next day where they could restock their food supplies.

“Azula?”

She looked up to find the Avatar standing beside her mat, looking down at her. He’d approached with a stealth that was concerning.

“What do you want?” she muttered, returning her attention to the map.

“I was just wondering if, uh, if you wanted to join us by the fire?” Aang offered. “You don’t have to sit over here by yourself, you know.” 

Azula scowled up at him then, her blue flame burning a little brighter. “What makes you think I want to _join all of you_ by the fire?” she asked scornfully. 

“Oh uh, I’m not saying you do,” Aang shrugged. “But you know, in case you did.”

“Well, I don’t,” Azula retorted, letting her flame die out and rolling up her map again. She expected her coldness to make the boy leave, but Aang simply stood there, rocking back and forth from toe to heel. Annoyed, Azula contemplated what manner of insult would be quickest to make him leave her alone, but she never got to find out.

“Hey,” Aang began again, “did you know that we’re kind of, sort of related, in a way?”

Azula looked up at him again, baffled. He was speaking to her conversationally, as if they were friends. “What on earth are you talking about?" she demanded. "That’s ridiculous.”

“No, it’s true,” Aang pressed, nodding his head. “You can ask Zuko.”

“Ask me what?” Zuko asked from his place by the fire.

“I was just telling Azula about how we’re related,” Aang answered. 

“Oh, right. Yeah, that’s true. Pretty much, I think,” Zuko confirmed, looking over at Azula. “I found out a while back that Avatar Roku was our great-grandfather. His daughter Rina was Mom’s mom. So, that makes us, uh, kind of related to Aang, because, you know, he’s technically a reincarnation of Avatar Roku.”

“So what?” Azula queried, crossing her arms over her chest. She was surprised, yet unable to determine what they expected her to do with that bit of information.

“So maybe you could, oh I don’t know, contemplate the fact that you killed your great-grandfather?” Katara cut in when no one else came up with an answer.

“ _Katara_!” Zuko hissed. He looked over at Azula, clearly concerned about her reaction to the girl’s provocation.

Azula didn’t move a muscle beyond quirking a brow. “That’s stupid,” she replied, unfazed by Katara’s confrontation.

“Yes, I agree,” Katara answered flatly. “Trying to kill your own great-grandfather is a pretty stupid thing to do.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Azula retorted. “I meant that the idea that we’re related or that _he_ -” she pointed toward Aang, “is my great-grandfather because of some Avatar reincarnation nonsense is stupid.” She waved a hand flippantly. “Besides, you know my own father had my grandfather killed.”

“Are you trying to say that _murder_ is _okay_ because _it runs in the family_?!” Katara choked out, aghast. The firelight dancing on her face exaggerated the shock in her expression even further.

“Oh please,” Azula sneered. “Spare me your self-righteous act. We were at war.”

“Actually,” Sokka interjected, “when you consider that she tried to kill her own brother, it shouldn’t really be all that shocking that she _also_ tried to kill her great-grandfather reincarnated as a bald kid. No offense, buddy,” he added as an aside to Aang.

“You’re not helping, _Sokka_ ,” Katara huffed. 

“And you’re all getting on my nerves,” Azula sighed. The Water Tribe siblings had begun arguing, with Zuko unsuccessfully trying to intervene. Their prattling grated, and the Avatar continuing to just stand beside her like a nuisance made it worse. 

“Please, just…” Azula looked up at Aang wearily and waved her hand, palm downward, shooing him away. 

“Right, I’ll leave you alone, but…” Aang suddenly crouched down so that his face was level with Azula’s and lowered his voice. “I guess what I really wanted to say is that I forgive you.”

“Excuse me?” she laughed incredulously, leaning back away from him.

“I said I-”

“I heard you. I just don’t seem to recall _asking_ you for forgiveness,” Azula scoffed.

“I know you didn’t. But you have it anyway,” he answered with a jarring sincerity.

Azula stared at him in silence. Aang waited a moment, then nodded and pushed back to his feet. 

“Okay then, well, that’s it. Goodnight, Azula.”

Azula scowled as she watched him walk away and rejoin the group at the fire. Muttering under her breath, she pulled her small blanket up around her shoulders and laid down on her mat, closing her eyes and attempting to drown out the sounds of their voices as she waited for the relief of sleep.

* * *

_The Crystal Catacombs glowed green, flashes of blue and orange dancing off the gleaming surfaces of the rocks. Water rushed through the cave, roaring in her ears. Azula panted, crouched, two fingers pointed and at the ready. The Avatar, illuminated, rose above them, only a boy yet an imposing figure. Azula breathed deeply, circled her arms, and aimed._

_At her will, lightning sprang from her fingers, cracking across the damp air of the cavern. It struck its target, wracking the boy’s body. Someone screamed. Lightning flowed from him, and not just from the exit point of the lightning’s path. It leapt from his eyes, his mouth, his fingers, his toes. More screams echoed in the cavern._

_Azula cried out in exultation. She was the Conqueror of Ba Sing Se. Slayer of the Avatar. Someday, Fire Lord._

Azula, what have you done?

_She turned to her right to see Zuko, with a burning wound that matched the Avatar’s spreading across his torso, staring at her in horror. He dropped to his knees._

_To her left, Mai gasped for breath, a gaping wound stealing the air from her lungs as she collapsed._

_In front of her, Ty Lee stood with her hands clasped over her chest, a sizzling hole where her heart should have been, her accusing gaze fixed on Azula until she toppled over, her eyes closing forever._

Azula, what have you done? _Her mother’s voice called to her again, soft and mournful. She turned to find Ursa behind her, blood bubbling from the corners of her lips._

Is this what you wanted? _Ursa rasped, crumpling to the ground. Azula fell to her knees beside her, tried to lift her up and cradle her in her arms. Her body was so cold that Azula began to shiver._

You’ve done well, daughter. _Her father stood behind her, proud and triumphant as he laid a heavy hand on her shoulder._

_She jumped, and only then did she realize that she was wounded as well- burned to the core by her own lightning._

* * *

Startled awake, Azula sat up in the darkness. She was cold and panting, and she shivered against the chilling night air. Reaching to pull up her blanket, she realized that, strangely, she had two. She looked around her in confusion, and from the corner of her eye she thought she saw a movement beside the dwindling fire. She squinted and rubbed her eyes, but by the time her eyesight had adjusted she could only make out the rough shapes of her companions where they slept around the fire. Someone was snoring. Assuming that it was only her mind playing tricks on her, Azula settled back down and pulled both blankets up to her chin, the chirping of crickets and crackling of the fire eventually lulling her back into a fitful sleep.


	7. Chapter 7

Ty Lee’s head was pounding by the time everyone settled down for the night. Much as she enjoyed everyone’s company -well, _almost_ everyone’s company- the first day on the road had been exhausting. She was a skilled rider, but even so, having to balance on a komodo rhino’s back for hours on end with only the help of her legs muscles and her grip on Zuko left her sore and tired. It had been a long time since she’d spent so much of the day on the back of any creature as well. Not since the Avatar-hunting days, as far as she could recall. 

She still felt a pang of guilt when she thought about it. No one held her past against her, and while that eased her feelings about it, it couldn’t erase them entirely. The more time she spent with her new friends, the more horrified she was whenever she contemplated the war she’d been a part of and the things she’d done. All because of Azula. All _for_ Azula. 

They’d talked about it before, all of them together. Everyone seemed more than happy to attribute her actions to the fact that Azula had coerced her. And it was the truth. She _had_ been coerced, ripped away from the life she wanted to lead, drafted into a war that she would otherwise have had nothing to do with. It wasn’t the whole truth, though. No one knew how she really felt, not even Mai. No one knew she was thrilled by the simple fact that Azula sought her out, even if she hadn’t wanted to leave the circus. Even if she’d been afraid. Azula had twisted her arm, but Ty Lee managed to convince herself that it meant something more than Azula wanting to use her as a weapon. 

She remembered the night she ran away from home, only a few months after they graduated from the Academy. Mai left the capital with her family for a while due to her father’s career, and Azula had grown increasingly distant, obsessed with spending her days training and studying military strategy without the constraints of their schooling on her time. She still invited Ty Lee to the palace on occasion, but she was distracted and easily irritated. Everything had changed in such a short span of time. Lonely and unable to stand her home life any longer, Ty Lee left a note for her parents, packed a few belongings, and headed for the palace. She’d tried to coax the guards into allowing her in without an invitation on account of her relationship to the princess, and when she was refused, she asked them to send a message to Azula for her. She only wanted to say goodbye. They relented, but the guard who did her bidding returned shortly and said the princess was busy and did not wish to be bothered. Crushed, Ty Lee left and didn’t look back. She thought she would likely never see Azula again, and her heart had nearly burst out of her chest when, two years later, Azula suddenly walked back into her life. It was terrifying and exhilarating. 

How could she explain such a contradiction to anyone? Even if someone would be able to understand, she was ashamed. She’d spent so much time performing, lapping up whatever crumbs of attention and affection were offered to her like a needy pet. It was embarrassing, and worse, it was wrong. She’d done wrong because of it. She treated their exploits as if it were all a game because she couldn’t face the truth: she was ignoring so much destruction and pain because she didn’t have the guts to do anything about it. At least not until it became personal for her and the life of someone she loved was in jeopardy.

Then Azula had the gall to call her a _faithless snake_ for saving Mai’s life. She knew Azula was trying to provoke a reaction, but she didn’t care. She was done with standing by, and she only wished she had found her courage sooner. Zuko once repeated to her something his uncle said, about how they were only children and should never have been made to fight wars that someone else started. True as that might be, she still felt a sense of responsibility, as did Zuko. That was why, when the Kyoshi Warriors had put their future as his guard to a vote, she had voted enthusiastically in favor. Even when it cost her a relationship with someone she deeply cared for, she didn’t regret it. Zuko was in a position of immense power, and he was doing everything in his power to right the wrongs of their nation. Protecting and helping him seemed like the best way she could share in those endeavors, but protecting him was turning out to entail more than she had bargained for. 

Across their circle, outside the reach of the fire’s warmth, Azula was sleeping fitfully. Ty Lee had taken first watch, remaining hunkered down by the fire while everyone else slept but forcing herself to stay awake and alert. She had nothing but the company of her own thoughts, the crickets, and an odd owl or two for a few hours, and her eyelids were growing heavy. She couldn’t stop thinking about what happened by the river. It was one thing to know that someone was struggling with their own mind but entirely another to see it happening. Even if that someone was someone she had every reason to hate. Especially if that someone was someone she once loved.

Ty Lee yawned, feeling as though the exhaustion settling on her reached to her bones. Not wanting to risk falling asleep at her post, she reluctantly reached over beside her and nudged Zuko. 

“Hmm,” Zuko mumbled groggily. 

“Zuko,” she whispered, nudging him again until he sat up abruptly. She held up a hand apologetically. “Sorry. I don’t think I can keep my eyes open any longer.” 

“S’okay,” he yawned, rubbing his eyes and sitting up from his mat beside hers. “You need to get some sleep too. Everything alright?” he asked, blinking as he tried to see past the crackling fire.

“Everything’s fine,” Ty Lee confirmed, stretching. “She’s been asleep the whole time.”

Zuko frowned as he looked over toward Azula. Ty Lee could hear her mumbling too. 

“Do you think she’s cold?” Zuko asked, sounding like a worried parent.

Ty Lee shrugged, settling down onto her mat and pulling her blanket up to her shoulders. “She had the option of coming over by the fire, and she didn’t, so if she’s cold it’s her own fault.”

Zuko sat quietly for a moment, then stood up and picked up his own blanket. 

“You’re going to get hurt, you know,” Ty Lee uttered before he could walk away.

Zuko stared down at her, half his face in shadow. She knew she didn’t have to explain herself.

“Maybe so,” he answered in a hushed tone. “But I can’t give up on her. Not yet.”

Ty Lee felt sorry for him as she watched him quietly cross their encampment and bend down to gently drape his blanket over Azula. She felt sorry for Azula, even after everything. She felt sorry for herself, unable to shake the sense that she was walking back into a trap she’d already escaped, this time with her eyes wide open.

* * *

  
  


Azula stood over Zuko where he slept, contemplating him. She’d awoken with the first light of dawn and found everyone asleep around the dead fire, Sokka sitting upright with his head tilted backward against the trunk of a tree and Zuko without a blanket. She was exceedingly aware of the poisonous letter carefully tucked away in her boot. For just a moment, she allowed herself to consider another path. 

Azula shook her head, as if she could shake off her misgivings, and tossed Zuko’s blanket at his face. As he startled awake, she stepped over him and shoved Sokka with the toe of her boot.

“I’m awake! I’m- ah!” Sokka flailed his arms and caught his balance, blinking up at her. 

“Nice job keeping watch,” she taunted, smirking down at him.

Zuko stood up shakily, clearly still disoriented by sleep. “What are you doing?” he demanded.

“Waking you lazy buffoons up, what’s it look like?” she retorted. Everyone else stirred then, and she left her brother and Sokka to their grumbling as she went to retrieve her breakfast.

The sun was climbing well into the sky by the time everyone had eaten and prepared themselves to get on the move. Once mounted up and back on the trail, Azula pushed hard, determined to make it to the Yama village by nightfall. 

They managed to make it into the village well before sundown thanks to Azula’s merciless pace. The mountain trails were becoming increasingly more difficult to traverse, and Azula cursed whatever had driven her mother to return to a backwater place like Hira’a in her exile. She was tired and tired of hearing her traveling companions whining about soreness, or lack of sleep, or being hungry, or any other number of things they found to complain about. She agreed to setting up camp early outside the village on account of the grueling pace they had set that day, and once they had settled in they arranged a trek into the village to purchase food. Suki and Sokka agreed to stay behind and watch the camp, and little as she was interested in a quaint village like Yama, staying behind with only the two of them seemed an infinitely worse option.

The rest of the group descended upon the village in the early hours of the evening just as the sun was beginning to touch the tops of the trees. Azula found nothing of interest in the market and left the purchase of food and water to Zuko, choosing instead to take a seat on the edge of a small fountain in the middle of the town square, out in the open where her brother, the Avatar, and the waterbender could keep an eye on her while they perused the various stalls together. Ty Lee was conspicuously watching her as she flitted around the market herself, turning her back to her fully for only the span of a minute while she purchased something from a vendor. They were already attracting attention, numerous villagers not even trying to hide their pointing and staring at Zuko and Aang. Azula was too tired to be bothered by any of them and could only think of what would happen when they reached Hira’a in two days. Sometimes, when she allowed her mind to dwell on it for too long, a knot would form in her stomach. She tried to convince herself that it was only nerves, that she needed to be cautious and precise and _perfect_ in her execution of the plan if they were to succeed, that there were too many variables at play for her to be comfortable.

 _I think you know it’s not that_.

Ursa sat beside her on the fountain, giving Azula that _knowing_ look that she hated so much. She grimaced and tapped her fingertips rhythmically against her leg, focusing on the feeling of the gentle _pat-pat-pat_ with each pass.

 _I don’t think you’ll do it._

Azula’s tapping grew more intense, and she pressed her lips in a thin line, unwilling to acknowledge her mother if she could help it. 

_You_ can _do it, of course, but I don’t think you want to._

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Azula muttered. 

“Who, me? I didn’t say anything.”

Ursa faded into the orange light of the sun as Azula squinted up at the little girl who’d stepped into her line of sight. She scowled as she took in her patched clothing and round, dirt-smudged face. The girl was openly staring at her while biting into a small hunk of bread and chewing in a manner that set Azula’s nerves on edge.

“Go away,” she responded, gritting her teeth. 

“That’s not nice,” the girl complained, still chewing. “I’m Mura,” she added.

“I don’t care _who_ you are, get lost!” Azula snapped, pushing up to her feet.

The little girl frowned and took a step backward moments before Ty Lee skidded in between them, her brow furrowed as she faced Azula.

“You should move along,” Ty Lee warned the girl, who stared for another moment before scampering away.

Azula took in Ty Lee’s subtle defensive stance: knees bent, weight forward, hands held low but at the ready. She laughed. 

“Go ahead and chi block me, but you’ll end up having to carry me back to camp,” she challenged. When Ty Lee didn’t react, she crossed her arms over her chest. “So I’m not even allowed to tell some little brat to leave me alone? Just because you enjoy being treated like a curiosity doesn’t mean the rest of us do.”

Ty Lee frowned, but she relaxed her stance. Azula sat back down on the edge of the fountain, crossing her legs at the knees. Surprisingly, Ty Lee hesitated for only a moment before moving to sit beside her. She took off the small satchel at her side and opened it, removing a parcel.

“Hungry?” she asked as she pulled the string wrapped around the package and began to gingerly unwrap it. 

“No,” Azula answered, watching her from the corner of her eye.

“Suit yourself,” Ty Lee shrugged and pulled apart a sweet roll, popping a piece in her mouth. “You were talking to your mom just now, weren’t you?” she asked when she had chewed and swallowed.

Taken aback, Azula whipped her head to the side and stared at Ty Lee, who simply looked back at her, open and guileless.

“It’s okay, you know,” Ty Lee went on. “You can’t help that, and I think it’s pointless for all of us to pretend it doesn’t happen or that we don’t notice when it does.” 

“So what is the point then, Ty Lee?” Azula scoffed, pivoting slightly to face her. “You don’t actually care, we both know that, so why even mention it?”

Ty Lee lifted her shoulders again, looking down at her lap as she pulled off another piece of her roll. “I guess I just thought it might do you some good to talk about it,” she finally responded.

“What do you want me to say?” Azula asked, her question punctuated by a harsh laugh. “I see my mother when she isn’t there, and sometimes it’s hard to tell what’s real and what isn’t.” She scrutinized the other girl as she ate, trying to determine what her motivations for the conversation were and failing to come up with a satisfactory explanation. Regardless, she _had_ wanted Ty Lee’s attention the day prior, and now she had it. Whatever her intentions were, Azula had her own.

Ty Lee was quiet for a moment, but when she looked up again her expression held a gentleness that Azula hadn’t seen in a long time. At least not directed at her. 

“Do you think it’s your mother you’re seeing because you resent her?” she asked quietly. “Or maybe there’s something more to it?”

Azula raised a brow but didn’t argue the point. “Who do you think you are? Doctor Ido?”

“No, obviously not,” Ty Lee answered slowly. “But I know you had a conflicted relationship with your mom. You always acted like you didn’t care, but I think it hurt you more than you let on. Wounds from childhood can cause all sorts of problems if we never take the time to heal them.”

“And what would _you_ know about any of that?” Azula retorted, incredulous yet amused.

“Well, I’ve been doing a lot of reading in my free time lately,” Ty Lee replied as she carefully wrapped up the remains of her meal and placed it back into her satchel. “Philosophy, psychology, you know… stuff. There are professors from Ba Sing Se University who’ve conducted some fascinating studies and written about the connection between the mind and our formative experiences, and about spiritual well-being, and you know... things like that.”

Azula stared at Ty Lee for a moment before throwing her head back and laughing. “Oh, that’s just rich,” she said as she swiped a finger beneath her eye, mimicking wiping away a tear. “ _You_ , suddenly a bookworm. Professor Ty Lee, is it now? What a shame you didn’t discover your love of learning while we were still in school. No offense, Professor, but you should probably stick to your auras and your acrobatics.”

All of the gentleness in Ty Lee’s expression fell away as Azula mocked her, her entire face flushing. “I knew I shouldn’t have even bothered,” she uttered. Anger flashed in her eyes as she went on, locking her gaze on Azula’s. “You don’t know me. Someday I’m going to attend a university myself, and I’m going to prove you and every other arrogant jerk who underestimates me wrong.” 

Azula noticed the sheen in Ty Lee’s eyes and felt a twinge of guilt, but she would not apologize. She wanted to hurt her, and she succeeded. Feeling bad about it afterward was a weakness. 

“Oh, I think I do know you. Dramatic as ever, aren’t you?” she sighed with a roll of her eyes. “Some things never change.”

“I _have_ changed,” Ty Lee ground out, abruptly standing up. “And you never really knew me in the first place. You know, I was so happy to be singled out by _the princess_ so long ago that it took me years to realize you never cared about me at all! I was just some kind of novelty for you to play with and use. And I tried _so hard_ to be a good friend to you. To always have your back and make you feel good about yourself and smile and laugh at your _stupid jokes_ which were _never funny_ , and all for what? To be treated like garbage and thrown in a cell? _You were never my friend!_ So stop acting like you know me because _you don’t_!”

“Is that all?” Azula drawled, lifting a hand to cover her mouth as she faked a yawn. She noted Ty Lee’s angry stance and clenched fists as well as the fact that their argument had drawn more eyes from the villagers in the surrounding market.

“Uh, hey guys!” Aang interrupted, walking up beside Ty Lee. “Everything okay over here?”

“I don’t know what’s going on, but you’re attracting a lot of attention,” Katara added, scowling at Azula as she came up on Ty Lee’s other side.

“We’re fine,” Azula responded, waving a hand nonchalantly.

“Yeah, just peachy,” Ty Lee muttered when Aang and Katara ignored Azula’s response and waited for her to confirm.

“Are we hiding now?” Azula queried, addressing Katara’s concern. “I can’t fathom why, but if we are, then you should be more worried about your little monk boyfriend’s tattooed head and my brother’s, shall we say, unique face. They attract more attention together than I could ever hope to.”

Katara glared at her. “They’re not the ones who are yelling in the middle of the square, now are they?”

“ _I_ certainly wasn’t yelling,” Azula shot back, placing a hand over her chest and casting a smirk Ty Lee’s way.

“Well I’m sure it _was_ your fault that Ty Lee was yelling,” Katara retorted, moving closer to Ty Lee as if to protect her.

“And you did yell at that little kid,” Ty Lee contradicted.

“It’s fine, guys,” Aang reassured, holding up his hands as he looked between them nervously. “We have no reason to hide. Everyone here seems perfectly friendly and happy to see their Fire Lord.”

“Who’s happy to see me?” Zuko asked as he joined the group.

“Nevermind,” Katara shut him down. “If we’ve got everything, let’s just get back to camp.”

“ _Please_ ,” Ty Lee uttered, pivoting on her toes and marching up the road out of town without so much as a glance behind her. 

Aang gestured for Azula to go after her so that he and Zuko and Katara could bring up the rear, carrying their purchases. The road back to camp felt longer than it had on their way in, and Azula occupied herself with replaying her conversation with Ty Lee over again in her mind. Something about it was bothering her, but she struggled to pinpoint what exactly. She could have protested the assertion that she had never been Ty Lee’s friend, as that was a lie, but to argue would imply that she cared. Obviously not an option, so she’d settled for allowing Ty Lee to think she was right. She _had_ been Ty Lee’s friend, she had, until she turned traitor and ruined everything. What else then? A small part of her wished she could take back what she’d said about Ty Lee’s dreams of attending a university, or at least that she hadn’t laughed at her so viciously. The girl was smart, though her smarts had always seemed more tactical than intellectual in Azula’s estimation. Still, Azula would never have entrusted anyone less intelligent with everything she entrusted to Ty Lee, though her own judgment deserved to be called into question for ever trusting someone so much at all. 

Perhaps that was it. Conversing with Ty Lee was just a slap in the face, a bitter reminder that she had failed yet again by allowing herself to ever place her faith in her supposed friends. Apparently she couldn’t even trust that their friendship had been genuine rather than full of falsehoods. _Laughing at my stupid jokes that were never funny, of all the nerve._

Azula scowled at Ty Lee’s back where she walked ahead of her up the trail, her mood souring the more she thought about it. Suddenly, she recalled another conversation, not so very long ago but in such a different time that it felt like an eternity. Standing in the middle of a party in a luxurious beach home, grabbing Ty Lee by the wrists and offering a rare apology because she hated seeing her cry. Confessing to jealousy to excuse herself for lashing out at her friend. Ty Lee bouncing back, bright and eager to help her. _If you want a boy to like you, you just look at him and smile a lot and laugh at everything he says, even if it's not funny._

Those were Ty Lee’s own words, but it had to be just a coincidence. If anything, she only craved attention that she had never gotten at home, and all of her empty flattery was just a way for her to attain the attention she sought. It couldn’t possibly mean anything else. Azula pulled at her collar, feeling as though the air had thickened with the onset of the evening. She tried to focus on the conversation happening behind her the rest of the way back to camp, no longer trusting the company of her own thoughts. 

* * *

  
  


The campsite that evening was livelier than it had been the previous night. Having extra time to rest as well as a few special treats purchased in the village seemed to provide a general morale boost. Azula paid the rest of the group little attention as she ate, but she did join their circle around the fire. She said it was easier to go over her map to plan their route for the next day when she didn’t need to provide her own flame to see, which was part of the truth if not the whole of it. She sat next to Zuko and from the corner of her eye caught him watching the path her finger traced on the map. When he noticed that she noticed, he cleared his throat.

“Care to show me where we’re headed tomorrow?” he asked casually.

“North,” Azula responded, not taking her eyes off the map.

“Yeah, I figured that much out,” Zuko answered, his voice taking on the particular strain that it did anytime he was annoyed but trying not to show it.

“Relax, Zuzu,” she cajoled. “We’re getting close. You’ll find out where we’re going when you need to know.”

“It’s just… this doesn’t make any sense,” he blurted out, leaning over her shoulder to look at the map. 

“What doesn’t make sense?” Aang cut in from his position on the other side of Zuko.

“I had this area searched. I mean, I had the whole Fire Nation searched, sort of,” he answered, glancing toward Aang. “Not every inch of it, obviously, but if my mom were here she should have been found already.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Azula questioned, brow furrowing as she looked up at Zuko.

“When you and Father were being, uh, uncooperative, I hired a bounty hunter I’ve worked with before,” Zuko admitted. 

“June?” Aang interjected again. Sokka and Katara reacted to the mention of her name as well.

“Who is June?” Azula pressed impatiently when Zuko confirmed his friend's guess.

“She’s a bounty hunter with a shirshu,” Zuko explained, frowning. “I hired her months ago. Gave her shirshu something of Mom’s that we found in the palace. She came back after a few weeks and said she found nothing.”

“So what? Maybe she’s a terrible bounty hunter,” Azula surmised.

“No,” Zuko argued. “Her shirshu can find anything, pretty much anywhere in the world.”

“Apparently not,” Azula pointed out.

“That’s why this doesn’t make sense. If Mom was…” Zuko waved his hands in a circle, “up here somewhere, June should have been able to find her. As long as she’s…”

“I’m sure she’s still alive, Zuko,” Aang cut in, putting a hand on Zuko’s shoulder. “There’s gotta be another explanation for it. Maybe something spiritual, like when I was off with the lion turtle.”

“Or maybe something more mundane,” Azula suggested, her shrewd gaze fixed on Zuko’s worried face. An opportunity had presented itself, and she was not one to let an opportunity slip by.

“Like what?” 

Azula studied her brother for a moment, then lifted her shoulders. “Well, she’s a bounty hunter. A bounty hunter’s only allegiance is to their purse.”

“So?” Zuko pushed. 

“Did you pay her?” Azula asked, quirking a brow.

“Of course I did,” Zuko replied, still appearing confused. 

“Even though she came back to you empty-handed?”

“She took the job. You can’t just not pay someone who did a job for you because you don’t get the results you want,” Zuko asserted. 

“You can if you’re the Fire Lord and you’re smart enough to withhold payment until you get the results you want,” Azula argued. When Zuko didn’t respond, she sighed. “Look, I’m only pointing out that if you paid her in full regardless of the result, then how can you be sure that _someone else_ didn’t also pay her to keep quiet?”

Zuko stared at her, and she simply waited for the implication to sink in. 

“Who would do that?” he finally asked, though Azula could see he already arrived at a conclusion.

“Perhaps someone who doesn’t want to be found,” Azula answered quietly. 

“Why would Mom not want me to find her?” Zuko demanded, his voice rising. 

“Zuko-” Katara began, reaching out a hand toward him.

“No, don’t do that,” Zuko held up a hand and rose to his feet. “I’m sorry, I just… need a minute.” He walked off into the dark woods, and his friends watched him go with concern etched into their features.

“Did you have to do that?” Katara turned on Azula, glowering at her across the fire.

“Do what, be realistic?” Azula scoffed. “There’s really no telling what we’re going to find when we reach our destination, and it’s better for Zuko if he’s already faced all of the possibilities.”

“I’m sure Zuko has already been considering all of the possibilities, Azula,” Aang replied, frowning at her. 

“Yeah, he’s not dumb ya know,” Sokka cut in. 

“He’s also not a child and won’t benefit from being treated like one by his supposed friends,” Azula retorted. “I’m going to go talk to him,” she added as she folded up her map and stood up.

“Not by yourself you’re not,” Suki asserted, quickly pushing to her feet as well. Katara joined her, a hand conspicuously resting near the mouth of her waterskin.

“This is _family business_ ,” Azula snapped. “And this is exactly what I meant about all of you treating him like a child. He’s a firebender, and _I’m his sister_ ,” she added with a pointed look at Katara.

Katara glared back at her, unflinching.

“We should just let her go,” Aang said. “Zuko won’t go far, and we’ll all be right here.” 

Azula glanced down at the Avatar then offered a wry smile for the waterbender and Kyoshi Warrior’s benefit. “Listen to the wise Avatar, kids,” she cooed as she flicked a lock of hair over her shoulder and followed Zuko off into the trees. 

She trudged a short distance through the darkness until she found him sitting beside one of their tethered komodo rhinos, his knees pulled up against his chest. Azula sat down beside him, gauging his mood before she spoke.

“I didn’t mean to upset you,” she said with as much sincerity as she could muster. “I just don’t want you to be taken by surprise if we find something you don’t like.”

“Like what?” Zuko asked, his voice low.

“I don’t like to speculate, but…Mom had a whole life before she came to the capital, a life she was taken away from. I read about some of it in her letters,” she answered carefully.

“The letters you burned,” Zuko accused.

“Yes. And I’m sorry about that,” she replied. “Really, I am. I was worried you would lock me away again, so I took action to make sure you couldn't. Listen, I can’t take that back, but I will tell you that based on those letters and my conversation with Father, I do have reason to believe that Mom might not want to be found. I just want you to be prepared for that possibility, that’s all.” 

Zuko was quiet for a few lingering moments, and when he spoke again his voice was full of emotion. “I _have_ thought about that, believe me. I’ve been Fire Lord for over a year, and if Mom is out there somewhere, I don’t understand why she wouldn’t have just come home by now. It’s been eating at me,” he admitted.

Satisfied with her work, Azula placed a hand on Zuko’s elbow where it rested on his knees, her tone conciliatory. “Maybe it’s just something we don’t understand yet, like Aang said. Chin up, Zuzu. We’re getting close, I promise.” When Zuko said nothing, Azula stood up again and brushed herself off. “I’m going back to the fire,” she announced. “It’s getting cold out here.”

“Azula?” he called out as she walked away.

She stopped in her tracks but didn’t turn around, waiting.

“Thanks.”

Azula grinned in the darkness. “Don’t get used to it,” she intoned playfully before she picked her way back to the fire, leaving him alone with the doubts she planted like seeds, watered and ready to grow.


	8. Chapter 8

Two days later, late in the afternoon, they crested a ridge on the mountain road and found the village of Hira’a nestled in the valley below. Just beyond the sleepy village, a vast forest stretched for miles, and on the horizon they could see the hazy blue outline of another ridge of mountains.

“There,” Azula pointed as they pulled up their rhinos single file on the trail to take in the view. “That’s Hira’a, Zuko. That’s the village where Mother grew up.”

Zuko twisted around in his saddle to look at her, and she hardened herself against the look of hope in his eyes, averting her gaze. “As far as we know, she came back here after she was banished. I can’t guarantee you anything more than that.” 

“Well, what are we waiting for?” Sokka cut in. “We need to get a move on and get off this mountain before the sun goes down.”

“What’s wrong? Can’t control your komodo rhino, or are you afraid the forest spirits will get you?” Azula smirked when Sokka made a face at her.

“Actually, we should be careful,” Aang asserted, staring out at the forest below. “That forest is a powerful place, I can feel it.”

“They call it the Forgetful Valley,” Azula affirmed, glancing toward the Avatar. “Said to be inhabited by a powerful spirit, but it sounds like a lot of superstitious countryside nonsense if you ask me.”

“Yeah, I’m willing to bet you haven’t seen half the crazy things we’ve seen,” Sokka retorted. 

“Can we go?” Zuko interrupted impatiently, pulling his rhino ahead on the trail and not waiting for anyone to answer. 

Azula dug her heels into her rhino’s side and followed him closely. She was on high alert now, as she had to be. Her total control of the situation waned with each step closer they took to Hira’a. Once they found Ursa, everything would be an uncertainty. 

When they reached the bottom of the mountain, Azula pulled up her komodo rhino and called for Zuko to stop. He pulled up his rhino as well and turned to face the rest of them. 

“Why are we stopping?” he demanded, clearly eager to move on down the road into the town.

“I don’t think we should go riding in there like this,” Azula answered. 

“Why?” Zuko asked, brow furrowed.

“Father told me he sent spies here on occasion after Mother was banished, meaning to keep track of her. They usually came back with very little information. From all accounts, Hira’a is a tightly knit community, and they protect their own. It won’t help us find Mother if the villagers shut us out.”

“You think we look like a threat,” Zuko realized. 

“Perhaps. It would be less aggressive if we go in on foot. I think we should go in separately,” Azula replied. “And I don’t think the Avatar should be coming in at all.”

“I don’t like the idea of splitting everyone up,” Suki interjected.

“And why should Aang have to stay out?” Katara demanded.

“These people are Fire Nation subjects,” Zuko protested. “I’ve never done anything to hurt them. Why wouldn’t they want to help me?”

“I already explained why,” Azula snapped impatiently. “But go ahead and do it your way if you think you and your friends know best. See what happens.”

Zuko looked between Azula and his friends, seemingly torn. The sun was dropping lower with every passing minute, and Azula knew they would be unlikely to find anyone to help them at all if they didn’t move on, but she bit her tongue to keep herself from pushing her brother further. 

“We’ll go in separately,” Zuko finally conceded. 

Azula nodded, concealing her satisfaction despite the pleasure it gave her to see the frustration in everyone’s faces as Zuko sided with her. She dismounted and led her komodo rhino off the trail, and the others reluctantly followed.

“Do you mind staying behind?” Zuko asked Aang.

“Not if that’s what you want,” Aang replied, patting his komodo rhino on the neck. “I’ll look after our friends here.” 

“Choose who you want to go with you and let’s get going,” Azula interjected. “You’re going in first, since we can’t hide who you are.”

“I’ll go with Azula,” Suki offered. “Katara?” she asked, looking toward the waterbender.

“Alright,” Katara nodded, stepping up beside Suki. 

“Then I guess you two are with me,” Zuko said, addressing Sokka and Ty Lee. “Unless you don’t want to come. But I could use the extra pairs of eyes and ears.”

“We’re with you, buddy,” Sokka replied, elbowing Zuko in the arm. 

Anxious energy poured off Zuko as he rolled his shoulders and flexed his hands, but he seemed as determined as Azula had ever seen him as he prepared to lead his group into Hira’a.

“Let’s go.”

  
  


* * *

  
  


Hira’a was slightly larger and more developed than Yama, but the two villages left a similar impression. Azula couldn’t imagine what it would have been like to grow up in such a place. Evening was setting in, and numerous locals were still milling about the streets as vendors in the market began to shut down their stalls. Some loitered about visiting with friends and neighbors, and children chased each other through the dusty streets, screaming and laughing. Azula had wrapped herself in a simple dark cloak before leaving the camp, and she succeeded in remaining reasonably discreet as she strolled through the market with Katara and Suki. The other girls attracted more attention than she did, their attire marking them as outsiders. People were mostly polite enough to offer a nod or a bow and refrain from staring. Katara had engaged an old man selling vegetables in a conversation about his produce, which provided the perfect excuse for them to linger near the stall and observe Zuko and his companions from a distance.

Zuko’s presence was causing enough of a stir that Azula thought she could have ridden into town on her komodo rhino decked in full armor and still gone unnoticed. She’d watched him approach several vendors in the market already and engage the people in polite conversation after they bowed and scraped and displayed all of the appropriate shock at the Fire Lord visiting their humble town. If she knew Zuko, then she knew it was likely he was asking them about Hira’a not only because he hoped to find out about their mother but also because he actually cared about them. _Poor naive Zuzu_. The people could praise him in one breath then deceive him with the next. The first few people that Zuko spoke to eventually shook their heads and appeared to be making apologies. Filthy liars, all of them. There was no way in a village of the size and character of Hira’a that none of them knew anything about Ursa. 

Azula watched as Zuko moved further down the street and engaged a middle-aged man with a mustache in conversation outside of a small tea shop. Sokka appeared to be doing his best to charm their new acquaintances, but to no avail. She was about to turn to Katara and Suki behind her to suggest they move on when she noticed a woman leaning against the wall of the tea shop, not a part of Zuko’s conversation with the man yet clearly eavesdropping. When Zuko turned to look at Sokka, the man turned his head aside, glancing at the woman, before returning his attention to the Fire Lord. The woman pushed off from the wall and strolled away, but her pace quickened the further away she got. 

Azula grabbed Suki’s arm to get her attention.

“Hey, what-”

“We’re going after her,” Azula intoned, nodding toward the retreating woman. “Come on.”

Suki exchanged a look with Katara, but Azula didn’t wait for their permission. She moved down the street quickly, the other girls quickly trailing along after her.

“Who is that?” Suki asked when she caught up with her.

“I don’t know,” Azula replied, “but I think I know what she’s doing.”

When the woman stopped abruptly and looked back toward Zuko in the market, Azula kept her gaze straight ahead and continued walking. Suki and Katara followed suit. Eventually, the woman turned down a side street. They followed her to the end, keeping to the shadows of the buildings. The street opened up into a field, and at the end of the field was an open-air stage. The woman climbed the steps on the side of the stage and disappeared into a doorway. 

“Go get Zuko,” Azula demanded of either of her companions, her pulse beginning to race. “ _Now_.”

“Go ahead,” Katara asserted, nodding at Suki. “I’ve got this.”

Suki frowned but did as she was bid, running back the way they had come. 

“We’re going around the back,” Azula quietly commanded. “There has to be another door.”

Katara followed her lead, the two of them darting through the field and hopping a low fence to get behind the building. Sure enough, there was a second door in the back with only a heavy curtain concealing it. 

“Are you sure we should do this?” Katara whispered before Azula could open the curtain. “Maybe we should just wait outside and see what happens.”

“Unless you want to go guard the front door and leave me here, we’re going in,” Azula hissed back. 

Katara pressed her lips together then nodded. They slipped into the building together and found themselves in a dark room which appeared to be for storage. Azula lit a small flame in her palm and guided them through the barrels and crates toward the glowing light at the entrance of the storage room. They stopped in the doorway when they heard voices. 

“I’m positive it’s him,” a woman’s voice uttered in a hushed tone. “What do you want to do?”

“I...I don’t know. I need to think,” a second woman’s voice came, sounding shaken. 

For a moment, Azula couldn’t breathe. She didn’t realize she was trembling until Katara put a hand on her arm. She flinched away reflexively, but she couldn’t move otherwise.

“That’s her,” Azula finally uttered, low and hushed.

“...no soldiers?...need to get to Ikem first...decide together…” 

Ursa’s voice was broken, and Azula didn’t know if her mother was whispering or if she just was just failing to process what she was hearing. _Pull yourself together._

“I think they’re leaving,” Katara whispered as they heard a muffled scraping followed by footsteps. A light was extinguished. 

Azula took a deep breath and peered out around the corner of the doorway, able to see very little in the suddenly darkened room. She lit a flame again and moved through the space swiftly and silently with Katara at her heels, realizing as she did that it was a backstage. Masks lining one of the walls peered down at them eerily in the blue light.

When they reached the door the two women had disappeared through, Azula recognized it as the stage door they had seen outside. She pulled back the curtain and let in the light of sunset just in time to see Ursa collapse to her knees on the end of the stage, both hands covering her mouth. Zuko was standing frozen in the field, Suki and Sokka and Ty Lee at his back. They stayed like that for a lingering moment, no one moving a muscle. Then Zuko ran for the stage.

Ursa wept as Zuko grabbed her and lifted her from the edge of the stage. Caught up in his arms, clinging to him as if for her life, she looked small and fragile. Zuko’s shoulders were shaking, his face buried in the crook of her neck. Azula was aware that the woman who warned Ursa had hopped down from the stage and was hurrying across the field back toward town, but she couldn’t focus on that.

They were saying things to each other, Zuko and Ursa, but Azula couldn’t make out a word. She held the curtain open with one hand, unable to stop herself from watching them yet unable to take a step forward. She forgot Katara was at her side until she heard the girl sniffling. Looking over at her, she saw tears streaming down the girl’s face, both of her hands clasped against her chest as she watched Zuko reunite with his mother. Katara looked at her then, and she reached out again, placing a hand on her arm.

“You should go to her,” Katara uttered, her voice cracking.

Azula said nothing, felt nothing but a yawning emptiness within her. She couldn’t even muster the will to shake off the waterbender’s touch, but she managed to step out past the curtain and allowed it to fall closed behind her as Katara followed and slipped down toward the rest of their group.

Down in the field, Ursa placed her hands on either side of Zuko’s face and was stroking his scarred cheek, wiping his tears away as she gazed up at him. He was smiling, laughing, crying, incredulous. Eventually, he looked past Ursa toward the stage. He said something to her, and Ursa turned.

The sight of her mother’s face momentarily stunned her. It was almost like looking into a mirror. It had been so many years since she’d seen her mother in the flesh, and the woman before her didn’t entirely match the image her mind had been conjuring. She was older, more beautiful, and real. Azula felt lightheaded, but she fought to maintain her composure.

“ _Azula_ ,” her mother breathed.

The tension in the air was palpable then as everyone else seemed to notice her standing there as well. They were waiting for a reaction from her, she realized. She was unpredictable in their eyes, a threat to be managed. She straightened herself up and took a deep, slow breath. _Remember the plan_.

“Mother,” Azula answered, cold and unmoving.

Ursa’s brow furrowed, but she managed to tear herself away from Zuko and quickly ascended the steps to the stage again. Azula wanted to back away, but there was nowhere for her to go. Ursa approached, almost hesitantly, and reached out for her. She cupped Azula’s face in both hands, stroking her thumbs over her cheeks the way she had with Zuko. Fresh rivers of tears spilled over her cheeks.

“Look at you,” she whispered. 

Ursa embraced her fully then, and Azula allowed it but did not return it. Her mother’s embrace was gentle, but she felt as though she couldn’t breathe. She realized that Zuko had joined them on the stage, and when she met his eyes over their mother’s shoulder, she felt a fresh surge of resolve. 

Azula pulled back from Ursa’s touch and smoothed her hair which had been mussed by the embrace. She contemplated Ursa’s tearful, confused face for a moment before she spoke with a forced calm. 

“I must admit, Mother, this reunion might be a little more touching if not for the fact that mere moments ago you intended to run from us.”

Ursa’s expression altered instantly, and Zuko frowned. 

“What are you talking about?” he demanded, his voice still raspy with emotion.

“Ask her,” Azula asserted, lifting her chin as if to indicate their mother.

“Azula, no…” Ursa began, but she turned to Zuko when she realized he was looking down at her. “We have a lot to talk about. I can explain.”

Confusion was etched into Zuko’s features as he looked between Azula and Ursa. 

“I’m sure whatever explanation you have will be completely convincing and more than satisfactory,” Azula replied, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Darling, please,” Ursa pleaded, eyes wet with tears. The hurt in her voice angered Azula.

“We do need to talk,” Zuko asserted, clearing his throat as his voice threatened to crack. 

“Ursa? Is everything alright?”

Azula pivoted to see a tall man with dark hair approaching from the field. The woman who had warned Ursa was behind him, and he was holding a small child in his arms. Azula recognized the man instantly though she had never seen him before, and her breath caught in her throat when she realized who the child must be. Another variable she hadn’t anticipated.

“Ikem.” Ursa said his name as if breathing a sigh of relief. She had a hand on Zuko’s arm, and she took a step forward, almost propelling him along with her. “Everything is fine. Come meet my children.”

Ikem ascended the steps to the stage, and the little girl he carried shrieked and reached out her arms when they got close to Ursa. 

“Mama!”

Zuko looked as though someone had struck him with a bolt of lightning as he watched Ursa reach out and take the child from Ikem’s arms. Azula almost pitied him.

“Zuko, Azula,” Ursa began, looking between them with a nervous energy that was palpable. “I would like you to meet my husband Ikem. And this is Kiyi. Your sister.”


	9. Chapter 9

The sun had long set by the time Azula found herself sitting on a cushion on the floor around a low table inside Ursa and Ikem’s home. It was a humble little place just outside of the village and on the edge of the forest, a strategic location in Azula’s mind. She was nearly certain this was how Ikem had escaped her father’s assassins and Ursa, after her banishment, had evaded his spies. The forest was thick and unforgiving, and despite what she had said about spirits in the valley earlier in the day, Azula could sense that the forest _was_ a dangerous place. A place few people who entered ever returned from, Ikem had warned when they all came upon the little home after retrieving the Avatar and their rhinos. Azula wondered what trickery had spared Ikem and her mother, if indeed they had utilized the forest to escape Ozai’s control and wrath. Perhaps the men her father had chosen for the tasks were all simply cowards, or perhaps the watchful neighbors giving warnings every time dangerous strangers turned up in town gave the couple adequate time to hide. Either way, it irked Azula that she had to risk herself and her freedom to tie up a loose end her father had failed to.

The entire affair was awkward and unpleasant. When introduced to Ikem, Azula all but ignored him, though he did give her the respect of her title, which pleased her. Zuko had returned his respectful bow with a perfunctory and almost mechanical one, clearly struggling to adjust to the situation. Little Kiyi seemed to make it better for him though, with her pealing laughter and her dimpled round face and tufts of dark hair like Zuko’s and eyes like her father's. She was no more than two years old, and she ran around the home with a dizzying energy. Everyone loved her. Katara and Ty Lee gushed over her and Suki told the child the little doll she clutched looked like a Kyoshi Warrior while Sokka made ridiculous noises with the doll to make her laugh. The Avatar even promised her a ride on his glider someday when she was older. 

Ursa and Ikem insisted that they all come home with them for a warm meal, though they were regretful that they did not have room for everyone to stay with them. The komodo rhinos and all of their belongings had been moved to a small clearing just outside the family’s home. Ursa made it clear she wanted the chance to talk with Zuko and Azula, but feeding them all was a priority. She had scarcely noticed the rest of their group at first back at the theater, but once Zuko introduced them, she transformed into the picture of a nurturing mother figure. She recognized Ty Lee instantly and greeted the girl with a warm hug, apologizing for not having noticed her sooner. Ty Lee prattled on with some nonsense about how long it had been, and Ursa said she should know her face anywhere since she and Azula had been inseparable as children. Azula hadn’t been able to keep herself from laughing at that, which earned her _that look_ from her mother that she remembered so well. Shock and bewilderment, as if she didn’t know who her own daughter was. Whatever else had changed, Ursa had not. 

“Ursa’s father was magistrate until his passing, and my father was a humble shopkeeper. But we met as children and as we grew older found that we had a common love of acting,” Ikem was explaining as he set one last steaming bowl in the middle of the table and took his seat by Ursa’s side. Aang had inquired after how they met as they all sat down for the meal, and Azula found his polite conversation with their hosts annoying.

While they ate, the Avatar attempted to ease the strained atmosphere by telling Ursa and Ikem all about how he met Katara, which prompted a similar sharing from Sokka about himself and Suki. Azula rapidly lost her appetite and picked at her food, but she noted that Zuko and Ursa seemed similarly on edge.

“And what about you, Fire Lord Zuko?” Ikem asked conversationally when Sokka finished blathering on about his beloved Kyoshi Warrior. “Is there a special someone in your life?”

“I, uh...no, not at the moment,” Zuko responded hesitantly, pushing his food around his bowl. He met Azula’s gaze across the table when he lifted his eyes, as if expecting something from her, but she merely frowned and turned a critical eye toward Ikem.

“Oh, well, all in due time,” Ikem went on, settling Kiyi down next to him after she squirmed out of Ursa’s lap and ran over to him. “You’re all very young, and love takes time.” He smiled over at Ursa then and reached out for her hand. “Sometimes the road is long and you have to wait. Maybe overcome obstacles that seem insurmountable. But if you keep faith and persevere, love will conquer in the end.”

Aang chimed in his agreement enthusiastically, but when the chorus of affirmation died down, Azula clapped her hands together with deliberate slowness.

“Congratulations on your happiness, Ikem,” she intoned before turning her attention to Ursa. “And to you, Mother. How very fortunate for you that you managed to replace both your husband and your children and build such a happy little life here.”

Someone audibly gasped, and Ursa nearly dropped the cup in her hands as she stared at Azula.

“ _Azula!_ ” Zuko scolded.

“Don’t pretend you don’t see exactly what this is, Zuko,” Azula retorted, fixing her gaze back on him. “I warned you, and I was right. You know it. We’re only here right now because they were caught before they could run. I wouldn’t be surprised if they still do run the minute you turn your back.”

“ _That’s not true_!” Ursa protested, looking as though she might weep again. “You have to let me explain.”

Tense silence reigned for a moment until Katara quietly cleared her throat and addressed her friends. “Um, maybe we should give them some privacy,” she suggested. 

Everyone looked toward Zuko, who nodded almost imperceptibly. Ikem stood up with the baby and her little doll in tow and suggested that they bring their food to their camp outside so they could finish their meals. He offered to bring extra blankets out for them as well and quickly disappeared into a back room of the house. He emerged again shortly after the rest of the group filed outside with their food and their obnoxiously concerned looks at Zuko, carrying a pile of blankets in his free arm. Azula sat silently with Zuko and Ursa until Ikem returned, still carrying a fussing Kiyi. He quickly dropped a kiss to the top of Ursa’s head and quietly assured her he would be there if she needed him before bowing to Zuko and Azula and carrying the squealing child off to bed. 

“Well,” Azula began once the three of them were alone. “You said you wanted to explain, so go ahead. Explain why you’ve been hiding and running from your own children.” She crossed her arms over her chest, and she could almost feel Ursa’s discomfort under her scrutiny.

Ursa closed her eyes for a moment and inhaled deeply before she began.

“I was only twenty-one years old when I was taken from this village. Taken from the only life I had ever known. Taken from Ikem. I didn’t have a choice. The threat against my family and Ikem was implicit when Fire Lord Azulon and Ozai came for me.”

“Because you’re Avatar Roku’s granddaughter,” Zuko surmised.

“Yes. That’s why my children are such talented benders, I’m sure,” Ursa offered with a faint smile. 

Azula grimaced. If she thought she could placate them with flattery, she was wrong. “Go on,” Azula demanded. 

“I tried to forget my life here once I married your father. Truly, I did. I tried to make our marriage a happy one, but it was impossible. Your father was impossible, surely you both know that now.”

Zuko nodded, but Azula merely raised a brow and waited in silence.

“You know why I left, don’t you? You know that I was banished?” Ursa asked, reaching over to place a hand on Zuko’s forearm.

“We know,” Zuko confirmed, his voice low. “You saved my life.” 

Ursa’s eyes welled again. “I tried to take you with me,” she uttered. “Both of you,” she added, turning her gaze quickly toward Azula. “But your father promised he would hunt us all down if I did, so I had no choice but to leave you behind.” 

Azula frowned. _That’s a lie. Father would never have gotten rid of me. Zuko, yes, but not me._

“There are no words to describe how devastated I was to have to leave my children behind. The two of you were the only light in my life in the capital. I came back here because it was the only other place I had ever known, but I found that both of my parents had passed away in my absence. I thought I was alone.” Ursa paused to furtively swipe away a tear that spilled over onto her cheek. “Then I found Ikem again. Still here, still waiting for me after all those years. Your father had tried more than once to have him assassinated, but he was protected here.” 

“By the villagers?” Zuko asked. 

“Yes, and by the forest. It’s a dangerous place, but for the people of Hira’a it can be a place of refuge. After we reunited we fled there and hid for a while. I was afraid Ozai would send someone after me, and he did. I don’t know if he was trying to have me killed or simply watched, but his agents showed up here numerous times over the years. They were always easy to recognize, and our neighbors have looked out for us. We built this home here at the edge of the forest so that we could flee if need be.” She paused and looked around the room for a moment before she continued. “The Forgetful Valley is so named for a reason. It’s not just dangerous. There’s something else to it. There are legends of a spirit that lives in the forest who has the power to make a person forget themselves and become someone new entirely. I’ve never seen any such thing, but many in the village believe that’s why it seems those who enter never return. Ikem himself went in search of the spirit when I was taken from Hira’a, but he never found it. What we both found is that the longer one remains in the forest, the duller the edges of your pain can grow.”

“Are you… are you saying you forgot us?” Zuko asked, brows furrowed.

“No! No, never,” Ursa reassured. “I’m only saying that spending time in the forest with Ikem made my life bearable again. Please try to understand. I worried myself sick about you. There were days after I left when I could barely get out of bed for the grief of losing my children. I found a way to live again, but I never forgot you, never.” 

“That’s all very tragic,” Azula cut in dryly, “but if you claim you didn’t forget us, then it doesn’t explain why you’ve been hiding here since Zuko’s ascension to the throne. Or why you tried to run from us. You _had_ to have known that Zuko was Fire Lord after all this time.” After she leveled her accusations, Azula discreetly fixed her attention on Zuko, monitoring his reception of their mother’s excuses. She needed his doubts and uncertainty. She was counting on them.

Ursa turned to Zuko then with a pained expression. “Yes, I knew. News travels slowly here, but I knew,” she admitted. “Zuko, you have to understand that when I left, you and Azula were so young. So impressionable. I was leaving you with no one but your father to guide you. The thought that he would mold you into a replication of himself in my absence… I didn’t want to think it possible, but I had to be realistic. And then the things we heard…” She trailed off, and Azula caught the way Ursa’s gaze flitted toward her, as if by instinct.

“What did you hear?” Zuko asked, stricken. He certainly already knew.

“There were rumors that you had been banished. But they also said you killed the Avatar,” Ursa answered softly. “Clearly that wasn’t true, and I’m so happy to see that the Avatar is your friend,” she added quickly. 

Zuko was looking at Azula then, and she clenched her jaw. 

“That sounds like an excuse,” Azula scoffed, redirecting the conversation back to her mother. “Surely you knew the rumors were false before we showed up here today.”

“I haven’t known what to believe, Azula,” Ursa replied evenly. “There have been so many rumors, and I had no way of being certain how… certain of who my children grew up to be. I had no way of knowing if I would be safe.”

 _Another lie. You_ knew _who I grew up to be. You’ve always known._

“You mean you and your new family,” Azula sneered, glancing pointedly toward the curtain separating the bedroom from the common area.

“All of us, yes,” Ursa answered carefully. “But please don’t think of them like that. They’re no more or less my family than you and Zuko are.”

Azula smiled bitterly. She needed Zuko to see that innocent, doll-clutching little brat asleep in the other room as a replacement for him, but she knew the truth. She was the only one who had been replaced. 

“I doubt that,” Azula replied, not attempting to conceal her feelings. “Why didn’t you come to the capital then and find out for yourself what was true and what was false?” she pushed. “Zuko has been Fire Lord for more than a year. You’ve had plenty of time to make that determination if you cared to.”

“Ikem and I have been discussing that,” Ursa asserted, looking between her children. “Since we first heard about Ozai’s defeat and imprisonment, we’ve spent long nights discussing how we might safely make contact. We tried to make plans. But then there was the bounty hunter-”

“I knew it,” Azula interjected, leaning forward, pinning her gaze on Zuko and willing him to _see_ . “She lied to you. She _was paid off_ to lie to you,” she accused.

“Is that true?” Zuko looked from Azula to Ursa, hurt clear in his expression. When she didn’t answer for a moment, the heartbreak was visible in his eyes. “Why would you do it?”

“ _Because I was afraid_ , Zuko,” Ursa answered, in pain yet defending herself with a clear and strong voice. “You sent a bounty hunter for me. I had no way of knowing what your intentions were. I had no guarantee that I would be safe. That Ikem would be safe. And Kiyi. She’s only a baby. I _had to_ think of her safety.”

“Of course you had to think of little Kiyi’s safety first,” Azula commiserated, her tone acerbic. “Satisfy my curiosity, will you? How did you manage to pay this bounty hunter?”

Ursa sighed. “I gave her the only pieces of royal jewelry I had on me the night I fled the palace. And some of our meager savings as well.”

Azula leaned back, looking between her mother and Zuko. Confusion was written all over her brother’s face. 

“All that trouble just to avoid us,” Azula mused. “Answer me one more thing, Mother. If Zuko invited you back to the capital right here and now, would you go?”

Ursa blinked, clearly taken aback by the question. All Azula needed was her hesitation. When she did not answer immediately, Zuko jumped in.

“Leave it alone, Azula,” he commanded. “You don’t have to answer that,” he said to Ursa, but his voice was strained.

“No, I want to,” Ursa protested. “I would need to discuss it with Ikem of course, but-”

“ _But_ ,” Azula laughed harshly, pushing to her feet. “I think I’ve heard enough.”

“Azula, please. Don’t.”

“Where are you going?” Zuko asked as she headed for the door.

“To get some fresh air. Is that allowed?” She stared down at Zuko, then decided to change tactics. “Please, Zuzu,” she went on, rubbing her fingertips against her temple. “I need some time.”

Zuko considered her for a moment, then nodded. Azula spared a wounded, accusing look for her mother before slipping outside into the darkness. She could see a small fire a short distance away and hear the snorting of the komodo rhinos where the rest of the group had set up camp. She turned in the opposite direction and headed for a trail that ran alongside the forest and seemed to lead toward a slope. Finding a small boulder, Azula sat down and pulled her knees up against her chest. She breathed in the cool night air and waited.

  
  


* * *

Ursa’s chest ached as she watched her daughter disappear into the night. She feared Ozai had won after all. Azula, her beautiful, clever, mischievous little Azula, had grown into someone so cold and full of rage that it almost hurt to look into her eyes. She had always had a mean streak, there was no denying that, and at times she had done things which were cause for deep alarm. Ursa always wanted to believe that it was just a phase, that it was only normal sibling rivalry and a healthy sense of competitiveness, that she was simply too young to understand the consequences of her actions. Whether or not any of that was true hardly seemed to matter now. Ozai had dug his claws into their little girl and shaped her into his image, turned her into a weapon. Ursa had heard rumors about the Fire Nation’s princess, and she was almost afraid to ask Zuko about them. She felt that without her son by her side, she would crumble.

“Are you alright?” Zuko asked her, pulling her out of her thoughts with a gentle hand on her arm.

Ursa inhaled a shaky breath and nodded, not wanting to worry her son. “I’m fine. That was just… difficult,” she offered, unable to find any other words.

“It’s always like this with her,” Zuko sighed. “But…I think she’s really hurt,” he added, and Ursa could see in his eyes that he was speaking about himself as well.

Ursa turned to her son fully and reached up with her free hand, stroking a lock of hair away from his temple. “I know I’ve hurt you too,” she whispered as she took in her son’s face, feeling as though a knife were being buried in her. She thought of all the years she had missed and wanted to weep. All the years he was alone, hurting, needing someone. She couldn’t look at the scar on his face without feeling a burning in the pit of her stomach, and she thought that if she ever saw Ozai again she could happily tear his own face to shreds with her fingernails.

“It’s alright,” Zuko tried to reassure her. “I understand why you did the things you did.” His eyes shone with unshed tears, and she knew that even if her sweet boy forgave her, he would not forget easily. Still, Zuko dropped a kiss to the palm of her hand before she lowered it, and Ursa rejoiced in knowing that whatever he had been through without her, Zuko was still Zuko.

“Why don’t you tell me about yourself,” Ursa prompted, sniffling and trying to smile with more cheer than she felt. “How are things in the capital? What’s it like being Fire Lord?”

Zuko humored her, telling her things that she had missed in his life in a disjointed but earnest fashion. She could sense the weight on his shoulders as he talked about his responsibilities, and she was proud of him, so proud, but she wished that he could just be a young man, free of so many cares and concerns. He told her about Iroh, how his uncle had nurtured him and guided him when no one else did, and Ursa blessed the old man in her heart. He told her about Mai, about how he had broken her heart and then she had broken his. Ursa pitied him, remembering her own first broken heart, but she was deeply disturbed when he told her that Mai had saved his life. Or rather, why and how she had. He told her about the Agni Kai, and Ursa’s stomach twisted and knotted in horror as she imagined her children dueling to the death. 

“We heard rumors, but I had no idea how bad it was,” Ursa whispered when Zuko finished the story. “We heard that the Avatar defeated Ozai and installed you as Fire Lord in his place.”

Zuko shook his head. “That’s only a half truth. Aang did defeat Father, but I won the crown from Azula.” 

“And… you imprisoned her after?” Ursa asked, choking back her sorrow. 

“Not imprisoned,” Zuko grimaced. “I mean, not really. She’s been guarded in an asylum for the last year. I’ve tried to make sure she is safe and cared for as best I can, but… she’s not well. I don’t know what to do with her,” he confessed. “One moment she seems like she might actually be alright, and the next...” he trailed off. 

Ursa’s breath hitched as she tried to grapple with what her son was telling her. 

“She sees things, talks to… people who aren’t there,” Zuko went on. “But that’s not the worst of it. She’s volatile, and she’s hurt people. She’s been alright so far in coming here, but that’s the reason we came with-” he waved a hand indicating the outside where his friends were camped. “I had to bring everyone else to help keep a handle on her, and she was the only one who knew how to find you because she burned all of the evidence we had.”

Ursa rested an elbow on the table and leaned her head in her hand. It seemed the whispers about the wayward princess, her poor Azula, had not been exaggerations at all. If anything, they did not tell even half of the story.

“I don’t know what I expected from your sister,” Ursa began. “I know I can’t expect either of you to forgive me just like that, but… she’s just so… _angry_. It felt like she despises me.”

Zuko cleared his throat awkwardly. “I think you should know… she’s talked about you. Not often, but enough to know. She thinks that you never liked her. Or at least that you didn’t love her as much as me.”

The ache in Ursa’s chest intensified, and she dropped her face into her hands. Guilt ate at her, and the weight of all the pain the world’s cruelty had inflicted on her children threatened to crush her.

“I’m sorry,” Zuko murmured, placing a hand gently on her shoulder. “I know it’s a lot to take in.”

Ursa was silent for a few lingering moments, then she rallied. “I can’t imagine what it’s been like to deal with,” she sympathized, straightening up and forcing a smile for him. “I’m so proud of you, Zuko. Truly. To take care of your sister even after all of that… it’s proof that I had no cause to worry about what sort of man you would turn out to be.”

Zuko smiled back at her, but there was a marked weariness in his face. 

“You look exhausted,” Ursa acknowledged. “I wish we had room for all of your friends, but I would love it if you and your sister would stay here with us tonight.”

Zuko nodded. “I don’t know if Azula will agree to that, but if she wants to stay outside I guess that’s her decision to make. Everyone else is perfectly capable of looking after her for a night. I should go check in with them before I turn in though.”

Ursa followed her son as he stood up, and she wrapped her arms around him and squeezed before he could leave. “I love you, Zuko. Know that I love you always. And I’m so happy you’re here.”

She felt Zuko kiss the top of her head before he returned her expression of affection, and he returned her squeeze with a force that almost took the breath from her. Ursa watched as he stepped out into the night and sparked a flame in his palm to light his way toward his friends. 

Scanning the darkness, Ursa frowned when she realized that Azula was nowhere within sight of the light that spilled out of the doorway. She was wondering if she’d gone over to the fire to join the rest of their group when she saw a flame - a _blue_ flame- sparking in the distance on the trail that led up into the lower ridges of the mountains. She stepped out into the darkness instinctively, the weariness in her body dissipating as she thought about her daughter. She needed to talk to her. She needed her to understand. She needed to understand her. She would do whatever it took to reach her.

  
  


* * *

The minutes passed with an eternal slowness, and Azula found her nerves becoming more frayed the longer she waited. She leaned back on the rock and looked up past the tree line, observing the stars that studded the black night sky. Once or twice, she thought she could hear something in the forest, things that weren’t screeching owls or chattering nocturnal beasts. It was only her mind playing tricks on her, she reasoned, yet she could not escape the feeling that the forest was alive, and it was watching her.

She almost gave up. It seemed nearly three quarters of an hour had passed with no change, Zuko still inside with Ursa, and his friends still gathered around their distant fire. They had been loud at first, but as time passed they grew quiet, and she wondered how many of them had succumbed to sleep. She briefly contemplated returning toward the house and eavesdropping on the conversation happening within, but that was a pointless curiosity. She had poked and prodded and twisted just so, and there was no more she could do for the night. 

Just as Azula was preparing to give up for the evening, Zuko emerged from the house and walked away toward the fire. Azula’s pulse quickened and her mind raced. Acting immediately seemed rash, but she might not get another chance. Suddenly Ursa appeared in the doorway, watching Zuko. Then she pivoted and stared out into the night, and Azula immediately tossed a flicker of blue flame into the air. When it burned out, she did it again, as if she were playing. For a moment, Ursa stood still. Then she stepped out into the darkness. _Like a moth to flame_. 

Azula could hear the soft tread of Ursa’s feet as she came up the trail. She was trembling, whether from cold or anticipation she didn’t know, but she imagined herself as she was meant to be, restored to her rightful place in the world. No more shame and disgrace. No more failure. 

“Azula?” Ursa called softly as she drew close.

“I’m here,” she responded.

“You’ve been out here a long time. Why don’t you come back inside?”

“Hm. No, I don’t think I will,” Azula replied coolly. 

“I was hoping you and your brother would stay inside with us tonight,” Ursa began again.

Azula continued flicking little sparks of blue flame into the air, each one illuminating her mother’s worried face for a moment before it disappeared. Finally, she sighed and slid down from her perch on the boulder. 

“I’m going for a walk,” she asserted. “You can tell Zuko I’ll be back soon.”

“In the dark?” Ursa questioned.

Azula released a burst of flame from her palm, holding it like a torch. “Not really a problem for me, is it?” she asked as she quirked a brow at her mother before turning on her heels and starting up the trail. 

“May I join you?”

Azula halted, pretending to consider the request. She shrugged. “I suppose, if you’d like.”

She caught Ursa’s hopeful smile before she turned back to the trail, and a sensation of guilt gnawed at her insides. _Don’t be a fool._

They walked in silence for a short while, carefully picking their way along the gentle slope of the trail. Soon the shrubbery turned to trees. The moon was full and rising, casting a glow over the landscape. Azula judged her surroundings. The little house at the edge of the forest, the campfire, all of it was no longer visible behind them. She walked on further, and she could hear nothing but the night winds rustling through the tops of the trees.

“I’m sorry this has all been so upsetting for you,” Ursa tried again, placing a hand on her arm and stopping her. “I never wanted anything to happen this way.”

“Neither did I,” Azula conceded, pivoting to face her mother. Her flame flickered out, and Ursa’s face was dappled with moonlight and shadow. 

“If I could only-”

“Did you tell Zuko the truth?” Azula suddenly demanded.

Ursa was silent for a moment. “The truth about what?” she finally asked. “What are you talking about?”

“About his real father?”

“I don’t know what-”

“Stop lying. You know exactly what I’m talking about. I read all of your letters.”

“My letters….oh, no! Azula, no. Those letters were a lie,” Ursa protested, her voice taking on an edge of alarm.

“Were they? They led me straight to you,” Azula mused. 

“Not all of them. But the one about Ikem and Zuko… it was a lie,” Ursa insisted.

“I know it is. Father knows it is. You know it. But Zuko and the whole of the Fire Nation don’t,” Azula lilted, tilting her head to the side. 

“Ikem knows too,” Ursa objected. “Whatever you’re planning on doing with that letter, you can’t-”

“Does Ikem _really_ know that he isn’t Zuko’s father?” she interrupted. “Is it really a _complete_ impossibility?”

Ursa fell silent, and Azula began to laugh. “Oh, that’s hilarious. Poor Father. He was _so_ convinced it was an impossibility. Ah, well. The story will be told, and even if your dear Ikem has his suspicions, if he’s wise he’ll keep them to himself. I’m sure he wouldn’t want little Kiyi to end up an orphan.”

Azula heard Ursa’s intake of breath, sharp and pained. She stumbled backward a step.

“Don’t act so surprised, Mother. You always knew this is what I am.” Ursa said nothing, but in the moonlight Azula could see the agony etched on her features. She stepped forward. “You ran away, unable to bear your shame when I confronted you about the circumstances of Zuko’s birth. You were planning on running anyway. Poor Zuzu will be heartbroken, but he already knows you chose your new, perfect little family over him.”

“I’m not running anywhere, Azula,” Ursa finally spoke, her voice strangely calm though Azula could almost hear her tears.

“I know that,” Azula affirmed, lifting a hand before her, flames bursting from her palm.

“They’ll know it was you when they find me,” Ursa warned, her voice cracking.

“They’re not going to find you, at least not for a while. The forest hides many secrets, you said so yourself.” Azula advanced, and Ursa stumbled back. “I’m sure Zuko will stay to look for you, but by the time he finds you, if he ever does, I’ll be long gone. He’ll return to the capital to find _your_ letter posted on every wall, for every citizen to see. It will be the beginning of the end of his reign.”

“And what if you’re mistaken? What if this doesn’t go according to plan?”

Azula’s anger flared. “Then I’ll fight my way out, like I always have,” she snarled. Her breathing grew labored, and her flames burned a deep, brilliant shade of blue.

“You’ve thought of everything, haven’t you?” Ursa replied sadly.

“I always do.”

“You’ve always been so efficient, too. Yet here you are, wasting time,” Ursa uttered. “Every moment we stand here is an opportunity for someone to come along and ruin your plan. A moment I could scream and bring them all down on you. You know that. I think if you really wanted to kill me, I would already be dead.”

“Maybe I just want you to feel pain!” Azula snapped, reaching out and grabbing Ursa by her collar.

“Because I’ve caused you pain,” Ursa realized aloud. Her features twisted and tears spilled over her cheeks in rivers as she reached out with both hands and cupped Azula’s face. “Darling,” she wept. “I failed you. I’m so sorry.”

“ _You should be_ ,” Azula hissed. 

_This is your last chance. Turn away, before it’s too late._ Ursa was begging her, warning her, but it was only in her mind. Her breathing grew ragged and erratic. 

“Stop it,” she uttered hoarsely.

 _This is your last chance, Azula. Fail again, and you will be nothing._ Ozai’s voice fought for dominance, and Azula was shaking violently. 

“ _Leave me alone!_ ” she rasped. 

In the flesh, her mother stroked her cheeks, wiping her tears away. “I failed you, but I always loved you. I still do. I _will always_ love you, Azula. No matter what.”

Azula hurtled her flame forward with a scream. The stream of fire flew past Ursa’s head and exploded in the shrubbery behind them, the bush going up in a crackling blaze of blue.

“ _Ursa!?”_

_“Azula!!”_

Someone was calling their names, but Azula could barely hear them. Weeping, she collapsed to her knees, Ursa with her, still clinging to her. Her mother’s arms wound around her, squeezing her, stroking her back and her hair, kissing her wet cheeks. 

_I love you. I love you. I love you._

Azula couldn’t bear it. 

“ _Mom?!_ ”

“Look, there!”

Azula ripped herself away from Ursa’s arms, barely able to breathe. Ursa was sobbing, trying to hold on to her. Azula shot to her feet, and only then did she realize that they had been discovered. 

“What’s going on? _What happened_?” 

“Stay away from me,” she choked out. 

Zuko was holding a flame aloft, casting all of them in light and shadow. Ikem ran past him to Ursa’s side. 

“Azula, what-”

She bolted. She’d been confined for so long that she almost forgot what it felt like to run, but her body remembered. Azula launched herself down from her position on the slope, flying past her brother and almost crashing into the Avatar. She caught herself with a lithe pivot as she landed. Someone tried to block her path, but her momentum knocked them aside. She heard a thud and a girl’s outcry, but she didn’t look back. 

“Stop her!” someone yelled. Zuko. 

Azula skidded the rest of the way down the trail’s incline and took off toward the tree line of the forest. She felt a gust of air at her back, but it missed her. She jumped when she heard the whistling of a second blast of air and collided with Zuko as he flanked her and flew in from the side. They both cried out at the impact and tumbled to the ground. Azula was on her feet first, but Zuko managed to grab her. 

“ _Let me go_ ,” Azula cried out as she wrenched herself away from his grip.

 _"Wait_ , Azula-” Zuko stopped and held up his hands. “Please, just wait.”

“ _You have to let me go_ ,” she sobbed. 

Before he could say or do anything else, before she could change her mind, Azula whirled and took off toward the darkness again.

“Azula!” 

She heard the distinct sound of liquid snapping and instinctively turned with a downward strike and a burst of flame, breaking the water whip that Katara lashed at her as she ran up beside Zuko before it could grab hold of her. 

“Stop! Please!”

She reached the tree line in a few short leaps, turned, crouched and then sprang into the air with a burst of flames propelling her upward. Grief and fury and shame poured from her palms and the soles of her feet, lighting up the ground below. When she finally dropped back to the earth, panting, sobbing, a thick wall of blue flame separated her from her pursuants. The flames spread through the grass and licked their way up the trunks of the trees. Someone yelled for water. Azula caught a glimpse of Zuko’s face on the other side, angry and pleading. Not wasting another moment, she turned and pushed forward into the inky forest, running and stumbling and tripping her way through the unfamiliar terrain. 

Behind her, she could hear their voices still. Shouting at her, shouting at each other, but they began to fade the further into the woods she ran. 

She heard a rustling in the branches above her a mere moment before someone dropped in front of her, blocking her path. They almost collided, but Azula ducked under a swinging arm. She blocked a second jab that came flying toward her ribs, almost tripping over a root, but she caught her balance and leapt backward.

“Azula, _stop_ ,” Ty Lee’s voice commanded. 

Panting, Azula stepped back again, barely able to make out the shape of the girl in front of her. She lit flames in her palms and raised them threateningly, and they both squinted against the sudden burst of light. 

“Don’t do this,” Ty Lee warned. “Zuko is trying to help you. _We’re_ trying to help you.”

“I’m not going back.” Azula’s voice was harsh and grating, feeling like sandpaper in her throat. “I won’t go back. I _can’t_ ,” She could taste the salt of her own tears in her mouth, and she lowered her hands from their defensive stance.

“I can’t stay,” she rasped.

Ty Lee was frozen for a moment, staring at her in the flickering light. Then she lowered her hands and stood up straight. There was only sadness and uncertainty in her eyes.

Azula let her flames die out, leaving them suspended in darkness for an eternal moment with only the sound of their breathing. Then she turned and ran, deeper and deeper into the forest, and Ty Lee did not follow.

Somewhere far in the distance, fading away in another world, someone was shouting her name.


	10. Chapter 10

“ _Why would you let her go?_ ” 

Zuko was trying to remain calm, but his frustration was boiling over into anger. Ty Lee sat inside Ursa and Ikem’s home where they had all regrouped after Katara and Aang put out the fire, arms folded across her chest, gazing up at him defiantly.

“I told you, _I don’t know._ I just… felt like I had to.”

Her unsatisfactory reply caused Zuko to throw up his hands in the air, barely able to keep himself from shouting at her.

“I’m not sure it’s fair to have expected Ty Lee to fight her by herself in the middle of a forest in the dark,” Suki pointed out defensively.

“But you said she didn’t try to fight you,” Zuko argued, turning back to Ty Lee in confusion.

“She didn’t fight me. I mean, she did, but… then she didn’t,” Ty Lee sighed. “But I think she would have if I had tried to force her to come back.”

“We need to go look for her,” Zuko asserted, running his hands through his hair.

“No,” Ikem cut in, his hand resting on Ursa’s shoulder. “With all due respect, it’s too dangerous. Especially at night, and all of you being completely unfamiliar with the forest.”

“If it’s dangerous for us, then it’s dangerous for Azula,” Zuko retorted. “We can’t just leave her in there.”

“I can try to fly over and see if I can see anything,” Aang offered. “But I don’t know if that makes sense to do now. It will be easier to search in the morning.”

“She might not have til morning!” Zuko yelled, exasperated.

“You’re worried about your sister, we understand,” Sokka interjected, walking over and laying a hand on Zuko’s shoulder. “But need I remind you who we’re talking about here? I mean, we once saw her save herself from falling to her death with a burst of fire and a hair pin! If anything, I’d say the forest should be more worried about Azula than the other way around.”

Zuko grimaced. He appreciated Sokka’s effort to make him feel better, but it was unsuccessful. Guilt was sitting too heavily on his shoulders, coupled with worry. He should never have let Azula go outside unsupervised or left his mother in the house while she was unaccounted for. It was a stupid, stupid mistake, and it could have resulted in a tragedy.

“I’m not sure we should assume that Azula isn’t going to come back on her own,” Katara spoke up, her brow furrowed, clearly choosing each word with care. “I was with her when you and Ursa found each other. She was... shaken. I almost thought she was going to cry. But then tonight...” she trailed off, glancing toward Ursa. 

Zuko followed her gaze toward his mother, who was sitting with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders, a steaming cup of tea in her hands, and Ikem hovering protectively by her side. She looked defeated.

“She didn’t hurt me,” Ursa insisted, closing her eyes. 

“I just think we should make sure we always have someone keeping watch, that’s all,” Katara assuaged. “Just in case.”

Zuko sighed, finally halting his pacing to sit down beside Ursa. “I’m sorry I brought all of this trouble to you, Mom,” he offered, feeling like a failure. “If something had happened to you because I brought Azula here-”

“Oh, sweetheart, no,” Ursa argued, setting her cup aside and reaching out to stroke his hair. “It’s not your fault. You came here to find me. Azula came here with different motives, I’m afraid. If anything, I should be apologizing to you. I believe your sister has something which could be detrimental to you.”

Zuko frowned, staring up at his mother. “What are you talking about?”

“Azula didn’t threaten me because she was hurt or angry with me. At least, not entirely. I think Ozai sent her here to get rid of me. She seems to have a letter that I wrote years ago in her possession.” Ursa lowered her head for a moment, and when she raised her eyes to Zuko again she appeared regretful. “The letter indicates that Ikem is your father, not Ozai.”

Zuko stiffened in shock, and on the other side of her Ikem visibly reacted. 

“It’s not true!” Ursa clarified quickly, holding up a hand. “When I realized my marriage to Ozai was a lost cause, I tried to contact Ikem. I sent so many letters, but they never left the palace. Ozai was intercepting all of them. I didn’t know it at the time, but I suspected it. I wanted to prove it, make him admit it. So I wrote something that I knew he couldn’t ignore. It worked. I suppose he kept all of my letters that he’d stolen hidden away somewhere.”

“Azula manipulated her way back into the palace then broke out of her room and found them,” Zuko confirmed. “I thought she burned them all.”

“All but one, it seems,” Ursa surmised. “I’m so sorry, Zuko. I never dreamed writing that letter could come back to hurt you like this.”

Zuko forced a smile for her sake. “Well, it hasn’t come back to hurt me yet. And if it ever does come out, maybe it won’t matter. I’m trying to change things in the Fire Nation.”

“I don’t know that you can change such a long history of traditions and social mores that quickly,” Ikem interjected, “but know that if it ever does come out, I’ll speak out for the truth for you.”

“Thank you,” Zuko nodded gratefully to Ikem. He suddenly wondered what it would be like if the letter was true. He’d known Ikem less than a day, but in a short span of time he’d seen how the man treated his mother. He tried to imagine Ozai serving Ursa a meal or caring for their child while she rested or protecting her from harm, and he couldn’t. Little Kiyi was lucky.

“Daddy!” a small voice called just then, and Kiyi appeared in the doorway leading to the bedroom, rubbing one eye with her fist. She toddled across the floor and almost tripped before she reached Ikem. Zuko reached out and caught her.

“Shouldn’t you be asleep?” Zuko chided as he helped her upright, giving her hair a playful ruffle. 

Kiyi responded with a sleepy, bashful smile before Ikem scooped her up and kissed her cheek. “Your brother is right,” Ikem tutted. “What are you doing out of bed at this hour, young lady?”

“No sleep,” Kiyi protested. 

“I’m sure we woke her,” Ursa said, smiling up at her daughter as the little girl reached down and grabbed at her hair. 

“I’ll put her back to bed,” Ikem asserted. “Say goodnight to your mama and Zuko, Kiyi.”

Kiyi squirmed her way down into Ursa’s lap and wrapped her arms around her mother’s neck. “Night night, Mama,” she mumbled.

“Can you say ‘goodnight, Zuko’ too?” Ursa asked softly when Kiyi pulled back. Kiyi stared at Zuko for a moment, as if considering whether she wanted to or not. 

“Goodnight, Kiyi,” Zuko said with a small smile.

“Night night, Zuko,” Ursa prompted again.

Kiyi shook her head and refused to speak, but she abruptly jumped on Zuko and threw her arms around his neck and squeezed. He returned her embrace, and when Ikem eventually pried Kiyi off and carried her back to bed, it was all Zuko could do to hold back tears. He cleared his throat and stood up. 

“I guess we should all just try to get some rest,” he conceded. “Are you going to be alright?” he asked, looking down at Ursa.

Ursa nodded before draining her cup of tea. She inhaled and exhaled slowly. “I will be,” she affirmed as she rose to her feet. She wrapped her arms around Zuko and just held him for a moment. Zuko buried his face in the crook of her neck, allowing himself to be comforted. However disastrous everything had turned out to be, he had found his mother after so many years. She was alive and safe, and he would do everything in his power to keep her that way.

When Ursa finally pulled back, she bid goodnight to each of his friends by name and made them collectively promise to let her know if they needed anything throughout the night. As she walked off to bed, Zuko took a moment to look around at his gathered friends as well. Everyone was clearly exhausted.

“I owe all of you a thank you,” Zuko admitted. “None of you had to come here with me, and I know it hasn’t been easy.” He glanced toward Ty Lee, who had risen to her feet and was leaning against the doorway, her arms still crossed defensively over her chest. “I don’t know what I would have done without all of you here to help me.”

“Don’t even mention it, buddy,” Sokka replied first, clapping him on the shoulder. “You’d do the same for any of us.”

“ _Do_ mention it though,” Suki retorted, her tone playful. “I took a pretty hard knock out there,” she added, exaggerating a rubbing motion on her back.

“I’m sorry about what happened,” Aang cut in. “We should have been more on top of things.”

“I probably shouldn’t have suggested that we leave you all alone,” Katara added apologetically.

“Not your fault,” Zuko shook his head. “I dragged all of you into an awkward situation, and then _I_ messed up when it counted.”

Ty Lee was notably silent, and when Zuko looked her way again she had turned and was staring out into the darkness, seemingly no longer even listening to the rest of them. Zuko approached her as everyone else began stretching and arguing over who would take first watch and filing out the door to return to their dead campfire and turn in for the night. 

“I’m sorry I kinda yelled at you,” Zuko offered once only he and Ty Lee remained. “I didn’t mean to blame you, I promise. I’m mostly angry at myself for letting it happen.”

Ty Lee remained quiet for a moment, then she looked up at him and sighed. “I know you didn’t,” she relented. “You’re frustrated. I am too. I don’t know if I did the right thing.”

“You went with your gut feeling,” Zuko replied. “Sometimes that’s all we can do. Though for me that usually turns out to be a disaster,” he added with a grimace, earning him a tired smile from Ty Lee.

They were still for a minute, both of them standing side by side staring out into the void of the forest. Zuko realized he was deeply grateful for Ty Lee, in that moment even more so than for all of their other friends. With Mai absent from his life, Ty Lee was the only one who really understood. About their past. About what it meant to be raised in and by and for the Fire Nation. About Azula. 

“We should get some rest,” Zuko finally broke the silence, feeling like he could drop where he stood and sleep for a week.

Ty Lee nodded and stifled a yawn. “We can start searching first thing in the morning.” She stepped through the doorway and headed toward the camp, suddenly pivoting on her toes to look back at him. “We’ll find her, Zuko. I’m sure we will.”

She was trying to reassure him, but her own voice lacked conviction. Zuko had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. For once, he hoped his gut feeling was wrong.

  
  


* * *

  
  


“Azula?... _Azula!_ ”

Azula peeked through the long leaves of the potted plant, barely able to stop herself from snickering. When Zuko finally rounded the corner, she leapt out from behind it with the biggest roar she could muster. Zuko yelled and fell backward, landing on the hard floor of the hall. 

“Ha ha! I got you!” she shrieked triumphantly as she pointed at her older brother. 

“You’re not funny, Azula!” Zuko griped as he scrambled to his feet. “And you didn’t get me, you just knocked me over.” 

“I scared you! I scared you!” she sang as she skipped around him in a circle. 

“You did not! You just knocked me down,” Zuko argued. “And Mom said it’s time for bed.”

“Did too!” Azula chirped as she skipped off down the hall. “Last one there is a maggot slug!”

A short while later, readied for bed but not for sleep, Azula fidgeted restlessly at Ursa’s side opposite Zuko where they all sat on her bed. Ursa was telling them a bedtime story, one they had heard many, many times before. 

“ _Only with your glory hidden in false form could you recognize my true devotion_ ,” Ursa quoted dramatically. “And so the Dragon Emperor and Empress lived-”

“Happily ever after, we know!” Azula pouted, kicking her little feet against the bed post. “Are you _ever_ going to tell us a new story?”

“You ruined the ending,” Zuko complained. 

“ _And so_ the Dragon Emperor and the Dragon Empress lived happily ever after. _The end_ ,” Ursa finished with emphasis. 

“I want a new story!” Azula repeated. 

“Alright, alright,” Ursa placated. “I’ll think of a new story for you, just give me a moment.”

“Make it a scary one!” Azula demanded, her eyes lighting up. 

“Why does it have to be scary?” Zuko protested with a yawn.

“ _Because_ , that’s why,” Azula retorted. “You’re just a scaredy-cat,” she taunted. 

“Am not,” Zuko grumbled back. 

“How am I supposed to think of a new story if you two keep arguing with each other?” Ursa chided with a sigh. She stroked Zuko’s hair where he rested his head in her lap.

“New story! New story!” Azula chanted. 

“Shhhhh,” Ursa shushed her gently. Zuko’s eyelids were beginning to droop with sleep. “Alright now,” she went on in a hushed tone, reaching out and pulling her rambunctious daughter close, cuddling her against her side. 

“Once upon a time, far away to the north, there was a village. In that village there lived a little boy and a little girl who played together every day and always got into all sorts of mischief. One day, they ventured into a forest together, a _deep_ and _dark_ and _frightening_ place, where legends said a powerful spirit lived…”

* * *

  
  


_Azula!_

The first thing she felt as her consciousness flickered was a dull pain in her head. The second was thirst, and the third hunger. Azula’s eyes flickered open. Someone was calling her name, or so it seemed. It might only be her own mind, for all she knew. 

_Azuuuulaaaaaaa!_

It sounded like the Avatar’s voice, wafting down through the canopy of the treetops. She remained still, curled up under the cover of a tangle of thick, mossy roots. 

It all came back to her slowly. Her mother. Zuko chasing her. A fire in the night. Fleeing into the forest, running and tripping her way through the darkness until her lungs burned and her legs could no longer carry her. Dropping when she could go no further and crawling into the closest approximation of cover that she could find. Curled up on the damp earth, shivering, begging for the relief of sleep. It found her eventually, and she had no idea how long it had claimed her.

Azula squinted as she looked up past the cover of the roots. Sunlight was filtering unevenly through the thick cover of the treets. She heard her name again, and again, each time more faint than the last. After several minutes of silence, she slowly crawled out from beneath the roots and tried to sit up, groaning as a sharp pain traveled through her side. She remembered colliding with Zuko then, and she grimaced in discomfort as she leaned back against the trunk of the tree.

They were searching for her, she realized, unless it truly was only another trick of her mind. After what she had done, she was certain they would throw her back in a cage if they caught her. She couldn’t let that happen.

_You should let them capture you. You’re weak. A disgrace._

Azula clutched her head in her hands. “Go away,” she rasped, her throat raw. 

Ozai towered over her, full of spite and condemnation. _I thought there was hope for you, but I was wrong. You’re a failure. You are nothing._

Trembling, Azula clenched her fists against her eyes, willing Ozai away. “I’m Azula. Princess of the Fire Nation. I’m… I’m-”

 _You are nothing_.

“Please,” she whispered.

A piercing scream rang out, like nothing Azula had ever heard before. She leapt to her feet, panting. Something rustled through the brush not far from her, then there was silence. Dizzy and unable to trust her own senses, Azula sat back down, trying to think. She took in the forest around her, but she had no way of determining where she was or how deep into it she had run. She could try to orient herself by the sun, but she could barely even see it through the thickness of the canopy and didn’t trust herself in her current state to try to climb. She couldn’t risk being seen anyway. The only thing to do appeared to be to keep going. 

She needed to find water first and foremost. After giving herself a few minutes to sit and breathe, Azula dragged herself back to her feet and climbed over the tangle of roots she had taken refuge in. She didn’t know where she was going, but she started walking.

The forest was less difficult to navigate in the daylight, but not by much. The undergrowth was thick, roots grabbed at her dragging feet, and low branches reached out as if trying to scratch her face. The air was thick and felt charged with an energy that made her skin crawl. There was chattering and chirping, but whatever creatures called the forest home did not make themselves readily seen. 

Azula walked for what felt like an eternity, trying to keep her wits about her, trying to remember that she was being hunted, but the longer she went without a drink, the harder it became to focus on anything. She could not tell if she had been walking for mere minutes or hours, but it seemed to her that the sun had altered its position in the sky. Once or twice, she thought she heard her name being called, but she never heard the Avatar’s voice again so clearly as she did when she had first been awakened. Perhaps it was all in her mind and no one was looking for her at all. 

When she found a large, mossy tree that was covered with vines, she could stand it no longer. There was neither sound nor sight of water, and she was growing desperate. Cursing herself for being so ill prepared as to not have a single blade anywhere on her person, Azula pulled a vine down from a low branch and resigned herself to ripping into it with her nails in search of moisture. She broke two of her nails in the process, one of them low enough to cause her to bleed, but when she had torn through the rough exterior to the marrow she found some small amount of moisture. She pressed the bitter plant to her mouth, tilting her head back and trying to pull as much water from the core as she could. When the futility of her endeavors sank in, she dropped to her knees and cried in frustration.

 _Look at you,_ Ozai sneered. _Wild animals have more dignity_. _You’re pathetic and weak_.

Azula dug her fingers into the dirt, wanting to scream. For a moment, she considered it. She could scream her throat raw. Or send bolts of lightning into the sky until her energy was spent. Or simply turn back the way she came. Run. Anything to get out, even if it meant she would be taken captive and thrown back into a cell. Then she remembered what it was like to be confined to a straitjacket, to a cell, guarded night and day, no privacy, no freedom. _I’d rather die here_.

Gritting her teeth, Azula forced herself to her feet and began to run, deeper into the forest. She ran until her lungs burned and she felt lightheaded. Something shrieked behind her, and when she looked behind for a split second, she missed what was ahead. The ground sloped downward sharply, and Azula’s foot failed to clear a jutting root. She tried to right herself as she lost her balance, but it was too late. She cried out as she tumbled down the slope, her body slamming into a thick green wall at the bottom. Everything went black.

  
  


* * *

“The Fire Lord will see you now, Princess,” her father’s steward informed her with a bow.

Azula reached up to smooth her hair. Her airship had landed mere minutes ago, and she rushed back to the palace upon being informed that her father demanded her presence. No time for making sure her appearance was impeccable, but she reasoned that it shouldn’t matter. She had just won the day. For herself, for her father, for the Fire Nation. The Avatar was alive, as she guessed, and had escaped once more, but the important thing was that they made it through the eclipse unscathed. Thanks to her. She conquered Ba Sing Se and brought home vital information that saved them from the invasion. She planned their defenses and counterattacks with precision, successfully kept the Avatar from even getting close to the Fire Lord, and ensured that they won the day. Her father would be proud. Grateful, even.

Azula took a deep breath as she stepped into the throne room. The fires surrounding the throne burned low, and the only sound was the clicking of her boots on the floor as she approached the throne. Ozai sat with his hands folded, his eyes closed, waiting for her.

“Father,” she intoned as she bowed.

“ _You lied to me_ ,” Ozai hissed.

Azula blanched with alarm. “Father, I-”

“Don’t you _dare_ try to lie to me again!” Ozai roared, and the flames around the throne jumped. “I already know everything! Your _traitor brother_ told me before he escaped.”

Azula’s pulse pounded and her mind raced. _What had Zuko done?_

“Traitor?” she repeated, feeling small and stupid. Of course Zuko had turned traitor. _Of course he had_. She should have anticipated that he would betray her to their father in the process.

“Yes, _traitor_. He’s run off to join the Avatar, ha! I questioned the wisdom of welcoming him home and restoring his honor, but _you_ assured me that he deserved it. You told me he killed the Avatar, yet _it was you who failed to_.”

“Forgive me,” Azula pled, lowering her head, her voice hoarse as fear spiked through her. “I did believe the Avatar was dead, and I was only trying to help Zuko because he helped me. It was a mistake. I should never have trusted him.”

“A _mistake_?” Ozai snarled, standing up and descending from the pavilion. “You lied to my face to save your own. That is not a mistake. That is failure and treachery!”

Azula felt as though she couldn’t breathe as her father approached, but beneath her fear anger boiled. Zuko betrayed her, and her father had the gall to berate her after all she had done. She wanted to scream at him that she had just saved him from the Avatar’s attack with nothing but her wits and two Dai Li agents which she had procured in the same manner. She wanted to enumerate all of her victories and demand that he acknowledge them. But she dared not, so she remained silent, waiting. 

“Fortunately for you, my dear, your crimes pale in comparison to your brother’s,” Ozai conceded as he moved to stand before her, though his voice still held a dangerous edge. “The Crown Prince is no more. He is an enemy of the Fire Nation, and it is your duty to hunt him down and wipe out this shameful stain upon our family’s honor.”

“Yes, Father,” Azula replied, squashing her rage in a display of abject devotion.

“You are my heir now,” Ozai went on, placing a hand on Azula’s shoulder. “As it was always meant to be. But I warn you. If you _ever_ try to deceive me again, you will know my wrath as your brother has.”

“I understand,” Azula choked out.

“I hope you do,” Ozai warned before dismissing her along with all hope of recognition for everything she had done. 

Once free of Ozai’s presence, Azula stormed out of the throne room, raging at anyone who so much as looked at her, shouting for the nearest servant to retrieve Mai and Ty Lee. When they were finally brought to her chambers hours later, she was still in a foul mood.

“We’re going hunting again, girls,” Azula announced as she tore through her room, barking orders at the servants tasked with preparing her belongings for travel. “Be prepared to leave at a moment’s notice.”

When neither responded, she whirled on them and found Mai staring at the ground, her eyes bloodshot and complexion blotched with red, as if she had been crying. Ty Lee stared back at Azula, brow furrowed in a rare frown, her expression strangely accusatory.

“What is wrong with you?” she demanded of Mai before it dawned on her. _Oh. Zuko. Of course._

“Mai’s having a tough time, Azula,” Ty Lee began defensively when Mai remained silent. “Zuko-”

“Turned traitor and took off? Yes, I’m _aware_ ,” Azula snapped. Pathetic as it was to be sobbing over a faithless wretch like her brother, it wouldn’t help any of them if Mai couldn’t pull herself together, and attacking the girl for her fragility was perhaps not the best tactic when the wound was so fresh. She took a deep breath and approached her friends, doing her best to adopt a conciliatory tone as she laid a hand on Mai’s shoulder. “You didn’t deserve this,” she sympathized. “I’m appalled that he could have done this to you. To all of us. Did you speak to him?”

Mai was quiet for a moment, then shook her head. “No. _You_ made us evacuate with every other useless noble in this city, remember? He just left me a lousy note.”

“May I see it?” Azula asked slowly, though it was not at all a request. She didn’t like Mai’s tone, but she held her temper. 

Mai pressed her lips together, then slowly reached into her pocket and handed over a rolled up letter. Azula scanned the letter, and when she found nothing of use to her, she handed it back. Mai took the letter and shoved it back into her pocket, still refusing to look at Azula.

“Rest assured, Mai,” Azula said. “We will find him. And when we do, he will be made to answer for all of his crimes, including his crimes against you. Now go do whatever you need to, both of you, and remain at the ready. We’ll be leaving as soon as we receive any kind of intelligence report.”

The girls left together, and Azula ordered her servants out after them. Left alone, she paced her room restlessly, recounting the events of the day from beginning to end, over and over again. The encounter with her father still stung, but she tried to console herself with the knowledge that everything she had ever wanted was within her grasp. The greatest obstacle to her destiny had removed itself, for good this time.

Azula finally stopped before her mirror and stared at her reflection, envisioning herself with the crown of the Fire Lord adorning her head. She was Princess of the Fire Nation, conqueror of Ba Sing Se, and savior of the capital. Someday, she would be Fire Lord. Until that day, she had traitors to hunt and enemies to vanquish, and the first enemy would be the one within herself. There was no more room for error, and every hint of weakness would be crushed with an unforgiving hand.

* * *

When Azula regained her consciousness, twilight had descended. Her head was pounding and her back ached. She remembered tripping and falling down a steep incline, the wind being knocked out of her as she landed. She briefly regained her senses, only for a dizziness to rob her of her consciousness again when she tried to get up. She was disoriented and so desperate for water that she hardly noticed the pain in her body or the gnawing hunger in her belly. 

Reaching out for support, Azula grabbed a cluster of vines and hauled herself to her feet. She realized then that the structure which had stopped her fall was a thick tangle of vines. Contemplating digging into another vine in search of moisture, Azula pulled at the vines in her hands until they gave way. Behind them were even more vines, and stretching out in either direction until they curved in a circular shape a seemingly endless wall of green. She had never seen anything like it before. It was bizarre and unsettling, and Azula was moments from backing away when she heard the distinct sound of a splash. 

Heart racing, she pushed forward instead and allowed the curtain of vines to fall closed behind her. She was surrounded then, and she couldn’t shake the sense that the vines were somehow alive. _Superstitious nonsense_. She tried to convince herself that’s all it was, controlling her breathing as she picked her way through the condensed forest within the forest. The vines kept going and going, and eventually Azula’s heart began to race and her breathing became erratic. Trying to keep herself from panicking in the midst of the unrelenting vines and the descending darkness, Azula gathered her energy and flames jumped from her palms. She threw a ball of fire before her, then another, slowly at first, but when the vines began to shrivel and burn away she graduated to punching bursts of flame with increasing rapidity. Embers danced through the smoke of the burning vines, and Azula thought she heard something screaming. Panting, she covered her mouth and nose with her sleeve and dashed through the corridor she had burned away for herself. When she finally burst through the other side, she fell to her knees, coughing and choking. Her eyes burned from the smoke, and it fleetingly crossed her mind that the smoke might attract unwelcome attention. 

All worries fell away when she could finally see again and took in her surroundings. She was in a small clearing, surrounded by a ring of tall trees from which the endless curtains of vines grew. And there, mere feet from her in the middle of the clearing, a placid pool shone in the dying light of the day. She might have shouted if she were able to, but as it was, she crawled forward and nearly fell face-first into the pool. Ripples spread outward from where she broke the surface of the water, drinking it in gasping gulps. It might have been only the dehydration, but Azula felt she had never drank water so sweet and pure before. 

When her thirst was finally quenched, Azula splashed water all over her face and neck and rinsed the lingering sting of smoke from her eyes. A cloud of dirt and soot spread through the pool, and it occurred to her then that there was nothing at all in the otherwise clear pond. No fish darting through the water or plant life reaching up from the bottom. The bottom of the pool wasn’t even visible. There was only clear water and a seemingly endless dark depth beyond the murky little circle that had blotted out Azula’s reflection. It was strange, and would have been disconcerting if she were not too tired to care.

Azula pushed herself away from the brink of the pool and collapsed onto her back. She was still hungry and her body still ached, but she was finally able to think beyond the driving need for water. She realized that she ought to move on in case the lingering tendrils of smoke from the vines she had burned caught unwanted attention, but leaving the only source of water she had found so far seemed unwise. She could at least take her chances until morning, as it seemed unlikely that the smoke would be seen under the cover of night. If anyone was indeed still searching for her, anyway. Somehow, the thought that they might have given up did not bring the relief it should have. 

Staring up at the patch of darkened sky visible through the ring of trees, Azula sought out the constellations she had once learned to navigate by. With no sources of light to mar her vision, she expected that she would be able to pick out the shapes and patterns in the twinkling cosmos with ease, yet somehow everything seemed wrong, almost distorted. The longer she gazed up into the darkness, the worse the contortion seemed, and it made her head spin. She closed her eyes, but then it felt as if the ground itself was beginning to tremble.

Instantly nauseated, Azula tried to sit up, and when she finally dragged herself upright, she realized that the pool was whirling and seemingly lit from the bottom with an eerie blue-green glow. She was losing whatever was left of her mind, surely, or else the deceptively perfect water had been bad. 

She didn’t have time to deliberate on which possibility was reality. Suddenly, a vast arm of green shot up from within the pool, followed by another, reaching for the sky before crashing downward on either edge, pushing and pulling until a crown of green appeared as if dragged up from the depths. Underneath the crown there was a face, no- multiple faces, pale and strangely beautiful, with only noses and mouths, no eyes among them. The creature’s body was a willowy twist of green vines and leaves as well, glistening as the water dripped down from its massive towering height. 

Azula began to laugh, quietly at first, then with a raucous heaving that wracked her body as she doubled over on her knees at the edge of the water. She had either poisoned herself, or she was finally going entirely mad. It didn’t matter which, and there was no point in fighting it any longer. 

“Who would _dare_ defile my sacred waters and _burn my home_?” 

The being was speaking to her, she realized, and it was angry. Its voice was feminine but seemed as deep and vast as the water from which it arose, strange yet somehow familiar, like something out of a dream or a memory long suppressed. Azula’s laughter had turned to sobbing, and she thought if that fierce and beautiful voice was the last thing she ever heard before she died, she wouldn’t mind at all. It sounded like the voice of a mother.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, lovely readers and commentariat! I just wanted to take a beat to say a massive thank you to everyone who has been reading and engaging with this fic thus far. When I decided I was going to put the story in my head on paper, I was doing it to scratch an itch, but the fact that so many of you decided to come along for the ride really and truly means the world to me. All of your comments and feedback and kudos are doing so much to keep the fire lit and keep me motivated, and here we are,10 chapters in already. We’ve got miles and miles more to go, and with that in mind, I do need to pace myself. I’ve been updating pretty frequently since I first published, and I’m thrilled that I’ve had the time thus far to really get the story on the road in a short span of time. Life is about to pick up the pace a little, however, so updates will likely take a bit longer in between than they have up to this point. 
> 
> I also want to note that the next chapter may end up containing somewhat darker material, and if that does end up being the case, I’m going to try to post more than one update at the time with a specific content warning in the beginning notes and a chapter summary in the end notes, in case anyone decides it’s in their best interests to skip a chapter and move on to the next one. While the fic is rated Mature and there are already content warnings in the main tags, I do feel a responsibility to be sensitive to readers and want to provide the option to skip past potentially/particularly triggering content without missing out on any important plot points. At the same time, I also feel a responsibility to both be true to the story as I’ve envisioned it as well as to dig a little deeper into themes that are relevant to our main character. I’m willing to bet that most of us who have landed here together on this tiny corner of the internet are here because we can relate to Azula on some level or other, and I hope that by its end this story might offer even the tiniest ray of light to anyone who has struggled in the dark. 
> 
> Much love, friends, and thank you again.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: depiction of depression and suicidal ideation beginning after the second cut. Please see chapter summary in the end notes if necessary.

“Who would _dare_ defile my sacred waters and _burn my home_?” 

Azula sat back on her heels, pulling in a deep breath as the wave of nausea and hysteria passed. She looked up at the creature which emerged from the water and towered over her, its pale faces seemingly lit from within. Somewhere inside she knew she ought to be afraid, but she felt only a fleeting sense of awe, and beyond that, nothing at all. 

“I suppose I did, but I’m not sure you’re even real,” Azula replied with a bleak laugh as she instinctively swiped away the wetness on her cheeks. 

The being seemed offended by her response, but it bent down closer, as if to study her.

“I am as real as you are, insolent child.” The voice rolled over her like the sound of distant thunder. “Who are you?”

“Maybe I’m not even real,” Azula remarked, lifting her hands and staring down at her dirtied palms. She clenched her fists and allowed her jagged nails to dig into her skin. The pain felt real enough. “My name is Azula,” she finally answered, lifting her gaze back to the being’s faces. 

“That is your name. _Who are you_?”

Azula contemplated every title she had ever worn proudly, wrapped around herself like armor. Each one seemed like nothing more than a brittle shell now. She couldn’t bring herself to name them. 

The being contemplated her in her silence for a prolonged moment. “I am the Mother of Faces,” she declared when she spoke again. “This is my home. You are an intruder here.” She reached a long, winding arm over Azula to the tunnel of burned vines behind her. When she touched their charred ends, they almost seemed to reach out to her, as if longing for her connection. “Why would you do this?” she asked, aggrieved. “So much senseless destruction. Is what you seek of me worth so much pain?”

Azula simply stared at the spirit in confusion. 

“ _What do you want of me, mortal?_ ” the Mother of Faces demanded, clearly angered by her silence.

“I don’t want anything from you,” Azula finally answered. “I only wanted water.”

The spirit was taken aback, as if her answer was the last thing she expected. “Water is to be freely given, if only you had asked,” she replied. “But you came to me with fire and burned your way to what you desired.”

“This is ridiculous,” Azula exclaimed in exasperation, dragging herself to her feet. “I don’t even know who you are.” 

The Mother of Faces shifted, blocking Azula’s path out. 

“I am the one who gifted you the face you wear. All life bears my design.”

“I’m fairly certain _my_ mother gave me my face, but if you say so I’ll take your word for it,” Azula responded bitterly, resigned to whatever madness or vengeful wrath the spirit would unleash. “If I’ve angered you, do whatever you wish.”

“You’re a curious thing,” the spirit remarked, not budging from Azula’s path. “I have never met a human who did not seek me out desiring the gifts I can give them.”

Exhaustion spread through Azula’s body, making it difficult for her to remain standing. “What gifts?” she asked, hoping that if she humored the spirit it might leave her alone.

The Mother of Faces’ crown of vines peeled back over one of the faces, revealing a pair of dark eyes. The face changed then, almost imperceptibly at first, but within moments the visage was different entirely. It continued to shift and change, melting from one individual into another.

“The gifts of identity,” the spirit answered. “Of faces. Of being. Many have sought me out, hurting and wishing to be something _other_. Few have found me, and fewer still have been deemed worthy of a new being. But I am generous. I give my gifts where they are deserved.” 

The vines crept back again, covering the changing face, but the Mother of Faces leaned down further and closer still. Azula felt _seen_ even though the eyes were no more. It disturbed her, and she tried to back away.

“You are in pain,” the Mother of Faces stated, unquestioning, but more gently than she had yet spoken. “Why do you not seek a new self?”

“I didn’t know it was an option,” Azula answered honestly, still avoiding the sightless gaze of the spirit.

“You are not deserving, but…” The Mother of Faces reached out with a long tendril, taking Azula by the chin and forcing her to face her. “I am a mother, and my child is also lost,” she explained, her voice full of sorrow. “He roams far from me and brings pain and destruction wherever he goes, but I love him still.”

Tears sprang into Azula’s eyes, and she tried to hold them back. She wanted to wrench herself away from the spirit’s grasp, but she didn’t have the strength.

“I am merciful,” the Mother of Faces went on. “I can free you from your pain.” She released Azula then, and when she lifted her arms a whirl of faces spun before her, each one unique yet lifeless, as if waiting for a soul to inhabit it. “I can give you a new face. I can erase your past, your memories, everything that makes you who you are. You will have a chance to start over.”

Azula watched the procession of identities that the Mother of Faces offered her, mesmerized. Tempted. Some of the faces were beautiful and others plain, but each one was someone else. Someone who could walk out of the forest and leave everything else behind, living freely. No more running, no more cages, no more betrayal and failure and pain. No more guilt. Someone who could live with a clean slate, as new and innocent as…

A face flashed before Azula’s eyes, small and round and dimpled with laughter.

_As innocent as the child who replaced you._

“Well?” the spirit prompted, waiting.

Suddenly another face was all Azula could see, almost a mirror image of her own yet older and full of sorrow, with tears spilling over her cheeks. Then another, pained and angry and scarred on one side, calling out to her. And another, pale and angular, watching her mistrustfully, her expression sharp as a steel blade. And another, once sweet and cheerful, now looking at her with nothing but pity and regret in her luminous eyes. 

If she chose one of the faces the spirit offered her, she would lose all of the rest forever. 

“No.” Azula gritted her teeth, trying to hold back her tears. 

_“No_?” the Mother of Faces repeated, as if she had misheard.

Azula shook her head and took a step back. “I can’t.” 

“My gift is not offered lightly,” the spirit replied, clearly displeased. “Who are you to reject it?”

“I’m no one. _Nothing_ ,” Azula ground out. “But I can’t do this.”

“Why hold on to your pain so tightly?” the spirit asked.

Shaking her head again, Azula tried to retreat, but the spirit would not let her go so easily.

“ _Why, child?_ ” she demanded in that voice of rolling thunder. “You owe me this honesty. You owe yourself.”

“Because I can’t lose them,” she whispered, the words nearly choking her.

The Mother of Faces relented, all of the soulless faces she offered disappearing as if they had never existed. “You may yet regret this choice,” she warned. 

“I just want to leave,” Azula replied weakly, possessed of no more energy or will to fight.

“That I can help you with,” the spirit agreed. “I will show you the way out and how to survive until then, but from this point forward you _will_ respect my home or you will not leave it alive.”

* * *

Zuko trudged out of the forest for what felt like the thousandth time, Ikem close by his side. Above them, Aang swooped down on his glider, landing in the small yard in front of the house and waving to them. When Zuko lifted his arms in an unspoken question, Aang shook his head regretfully before leaning his glider against the outside wall and stepping into the house. It had been weeks since Azula’s disappearance, and Zuko felt his hope dwindling further each day that their searching turned up completely fruitless.

“I’m sorry, Zuko,” Ikem intoned, sighing heavily. “Maybe we’ll have better luck tomorrow.”

“Yeah, maybe,” he responded, though he wasn’t certain that there would be a tomorrow. They had pushed as deep into the forest as they dared, past points where even Ikem and Ursa had ever ventured, and still found not a single trace of Azula. Aang had scanned the forest for miles and miles by air, having nearly made it completely to the other side, and still not a sign of her. It was as if she vanished into thin air. The thought that they would have to give up pained him, but Zuko could not stay on the outskirts of Hira’a searching for her forever. He had responsibilities, and as much as he trusted his uncle to handle the state’s affairs in his absence, he knew he could not stay away indefinitely. 

Everyone else participated in the search just as diligently as he did, but he could tell that his friends were worn out and had each given up hope at some point in the past fortnight. Ty Lee was the last hold out, though he suspected that she had never actually believed they would find Azula and was simply working so hard alongside him because she felt badly about the night she escaped. _“Maybe she just doesn’t want to be found, Zuko,”_ Ty Lee had finally said just the prior evening, and he had to admit that she might be right. If Azula didn’t want to be found, he couldn’t think of anyone else who would be able to disappear so thoroughly. Part of him simply _wanted_ to believe that, because it was better than the alternative. He couldn’t allow himself to dwell on the possibility that she was dead already. 

Ursa was the picture of strength and practicality in the daylight hours, but Zuko heard her crying at night. He had wondered how her last encounter with Azula would affect her feelings, but he should have known Ursa would be no different than him. He was her son in every way, and even after everything Azula had done to him, here he was. He imagined Azula would laugh at them and call them fools if she knew they were still searching for her. 

When they reached the house, Ikem clapped Zuko on the shoulder in an attempt at encouragement then went to find Ursa. Inside the house, Zuko found that Aang was the only other one who had returned for the day. He kicked off his muddied boots at the door and went to sit beside his friend, collapsing onto a cushion.

“Nothing?” Aang asked. 

“Nothing,” Zuko sighed. “You didn’t see _anything_ up there?”

Aang shook his head. “No. It’s strange. I can feel all of this power, but I can’t pinpoint it. And it’s almost like the forest doesn’t want us here. Like it’s hiding something.”

“Maybe it is,” Zuko rubbed a hand over his face. “I’m worried about everyone going in and searching every day, and I can tell my mom is too. We can’t keep doing this forever.”

“I’m sure she’ll be okay, Zuko,” Aang offered, but the positivity in his voice sounded forced.

“I don’t know what to do about my mom either. I can’t leave her here with no protection, but I also can’t force her to come to the capital with me,” Zuko went on. “It’s just such a mess. I made a mess of everything.”

“No you didn’t,” Aang contradicted. “It’s not your-”

“You don’t get it,” Zuko cut him off, finally giving voice to a thought that had been eating away at him. “I think I might have made a mistake, Aang, and I don’t mean just that first night here.”

“What are you talking about?” Aang prompted, brow furrowing.

“I never told you what happened when we got back from the colonies,” Zuko began. “The first thing I did when I got back was check on Azula, and the way I found her… I’ve never seen anything like it before. She would barely move or eat. She wouldn’t speak or look at anyone. I’m not sure if she even knew I was there. It was even worse than when she was destroying everything and attacking everyone. Her doctor said she’d been that way for weeks. That was when we took the straitjacket off, and she got better after that. But I’ll never get the image of her that way out of my head. It was like… like she was barely even alive. Like I killed her spirit and the rest of her was just hanging on.”

Aang was quiet for a moment after he finished, and Zuko dropped his head into his hands. 

“You didn’t kill her spirit, Zuko,” Aang finally replied. “You were trying to help her.”

“I didn’t know what else to do with her. I couldn’t let her run free and hurt people, or hurt herself, but I’m not sure I made the right call locking her up like that. I tried to tell myself it was better than a prison, but was it really? Maybe I should have just had you take her bending so she couldn’t hurt anyone.”

Aang grimaced. “I don’t think so. Taking someone’s bending away isn’t something I would do lightly. Only as a last resort, like with Ozai. I’m not going to pretend that I know your sister so well or anything, but somehow I don’t think taking her bending away would have helped her.”

“Maybe not,” Zuko conceded, frustrated.

“I don’t think there are any easy answers,” Aang continued. “And I don’t think that dwelling on the past is going to help you moving forward. Maybe you made a mistake. Or maybe you saved her life, or the lives of other people. All you can do is accept that you were put in an impossible situation and you tried to do your best for everyone involved.”

“It sounds sensible when you put it like that,” Zuko admitted, “but it doesn’t really make me feel better.”

“This probably won’t make you feel better either then, but now that I’m thinking of it…” Aang hedged.

“What now?” Zuko groaned.

“Well, I was just thinking that taking someone’s bending away might make them less of an immediate threat, but it doesn’t necessarily mean they aren’t still dangerous. What are you going to do about your dad?” Aang inquired.

“What do you mean, what am I going to do about him? He’s locked up and you took his bending away,” Zuko replied, frowning. “What else am I supposed to do about him?”

“I don’t know. I just think the fact that he managed to hatch this whole plot to take you down and got as far with it as getting Azula out here to commit murder all while he’s just sitting in a cell is, uh, concerning.”

“Yeah, because I’m an idiot who let him and Azula talk to each other alone,” Zuko pointed out.

“But there had to have been more to it than that,” Aang pushed. “Think about it. If Azula had gone through with it and managed to get away and spread that letter about you around, then what?”

“Well I’d ask Azula that, but she’s not exactly here for me to ask now is she?” Zuko retorted.

“No, she’s not,” Aang replied patiently. “So think about what a possible next step _might_ have been.”

“I don’t know,” Zuko threw up his hands in frustration. “Breaking my dad out of prison? Azula’s smart and she’s dangerous but I’m not sure she could have managed that on her own.”

“So maybe she wouldn’t have been on her own,” Aang concluded. 

Zuko frowned. “You think there are people who would help her?”

“Maybe. I don’t know. I mean, you did replace all of Ozai’s officials as soon as you became Fire Lord, right? That must have made some people unhappy. And, well, you kind of did a coup. And you’re trying to reverse course on a hundred years of Fire Nation history-”

“It wasn’t a coup!” Zuko protested. “I won the crown from Azula in an Agni Kai. It was traditional and legal.” 

“But does everyone see it that way?” Aang questioned. “I mean, a lot of people know that _you_ technically didn’t beat Azula in the Agni Kai. No offense.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Zuko insisted. “Azula fought dirty. Katara was with me, and she beat Azula. I won. Besides, I think the people are mostly happy with me so far anyway.”

“The common people, sure,” Aang agreed, holding up a hand. “Look, I’m just saying, I think you need to keep an eye out.”

Zuko sighed. “Sure. You’re right. I’ll keep an eye out. Here’s hoping nobody murders me in my sleep.” 

“Who’s murdering who in their sleep?” Sokka asked as he walked into the house with Suki, Ty Lee, and Katara trailing him.

“Me,” Zuko replied.

“Who are you murdering and why?” Sokka blinked.

“No, I’m the one who’s getting murdered in my sleep, apparently,” Zuko corrected, rubbing his hands over his face. 

“Okay, nobody’s getting murdered in their sleep,” Aang interjected. “I wasn’t trying to freak you out, I’m sorry. I’m just worried is all.”

“Well _you’re_ the one who didn’t want to put a stop to my dad permanently when you had the chance, so.”

“Because it would have been wrong!” Aang responded, throwing his hands up defensively. 

Katara cleared her throat, and Zuko turned to see that Ursa and Ikem had quietly entered the room and were listening to their conversation.

“I’m glad you didn’t take Ozai’s life, Aang,” Ursa spoke up when she saw that they had noticed her. “He deserves to spend the rest of his life exactly where he is.” She took Ikem by the hand then, looking up at him for a moment before she turned her gaze to Zuko and went on in a steely voice. “And _when_ we return to the capital, I want to see him. I want to look him in the eyes and say everything I could never say to him before. I want him to see how he failed to destroy us. Even Azula,” Ursa added, her voice finally cracking. “I want him to see me, alive and well, and know that whatever he did was not enough. That there’s still hope for her.”

  
  


* * *

Azula curled her lip in distaste as she sat in the near-darkness and picked missed bits of scales off of the fish she had managed to spear for a meal. It smelled edible enough after she had started a small fire and cooked it, but the entire process still turned her stomach. She had less of an appetite each day that passed anyway, and the food she managed to forage was enough to keep her going. _These are edible_ , the Mother of Faces had said, showing her the small purple fruits of a flowering bush. _And these will kill you_ , she warned, showing her similar-looking berries from a different shrub. _These will give you strength, these will make you ill, these will kill you_ , she’d said as she showed her various plants and roots which the forest provided. The spirit had led her to a narrow stream far from her sacred pools and told her to follow it east, toward the rising sun, and she would eventually find the end of the forest. On the other side would be mountains which hedged in the Forgetful Valley opposite Hira’a. _Follow the stream, but do not sleep near it at night_ , the Mother of Faces cautioned her. _And do not linger here. The forest may yet ease your pain, but that may only make things worse for you._

She didn’t mean to linger in the forest, but she supposed that was exactly what she was doing. The longer she remained, the less she seemed to care whether she ever made it out at all. She couldn’t find a reason to. The first day after her encounter with the Mother of Faces, when she’d been set on her path and gifted with enough knowledge of the land to keep her alive, Azula had risen with the sun and set out with a determination to find the other end of the forest and leave it behind her. With each passing day, however, the closer she came to getting out, the harder she found it to remember why she wanted to. It required more effort to rise in the mornings, and sometimes she couldn’t bring herself to move until well into the afternoon. Her pace had slowed, and more than once she absently wandered off course of the stream. What was waiting for her on the other side? She asked herself often, and the answer was always the same: nothing.

Azula had lost. She knew it, and she was too tired to even try to convince herself that she still had a chance. She lost a long time ago, she realized, and had only been deceiving herself to think otherwise. The crown and the throne were lost to her forever, completely beyond her reach, and whatever loyalty anyone might have held for her was crushed out of them by her own hands. She was disgraced and humiliated, and her dream was gone. Nothing was left but a yawning void that threatened to consume her.

 _Oh no, my dear. You haven’t lost_ everything. _I’m still here. I won’t leave you. Not until you leave this world._

“You’re not even real,” Azula muttered as she reached her foot to stomp out the embers of her little campfire, though she knew Ozai was speaking the truth. He had been a constant companion on her trek.

 _Neither are you_ , he argued. _Or at least you might as well not be. Such a shame. You had so much potential._

His words should have hurt more, and once they would have, but now they only landed as dull blows. Azula felt as though she were being pushed toward a precipice, and it might be a relief to let herself go. 

Finished with her meal, she retrieved her mother’s letter and read it over and over again, as she had developed a habit of doing in the evenings. True or false, it didn’t matter. She could envision what would happen in her absence. Zuko was reunited with their mother at long last. He would surely accept Ursa’s husband as a member of his family. He would accept his new little sister without question. And they would accept him. They would be a family. Much as she wanted to despise them all, some small part of her had to acknowledge it as justice. Zuko had won, after all. He won her crown. He won the loyalty of her friends, and he won their mother’s love. Why shouldn’t he have the family he always wanted too? 

_To the victor, the spoils, hm?_ Ozai laughed at her. _You could have had everything if you were worthy._

 _You could have had everything if only you had stayed_ , Ursa whispered. _You are loved_.

Azula sighed, folded up the letter, and tucked it back into her boot. Ursa’s lies always hurt worse than her father’s most cutting insults, but it was hard for her to even muster the will to respond to them anymore. The weariness that settled on her reached to her bones. 

After extinguishing the last embers of her little fire, she forced herself down to the banks of the stream to wash her hands and get a drink of water. Kneeling down and cupping her hands, she dipped them into the stream and brought the water up to her lips, drinking it down quickly. The water was nowhere near as perfect as the water from the spirit pool, but at least she wasn’t being harassed for drinking from it. She sat back when she was sated and could not gather the will to move herself to a more protected location. It hardly mattered anyway. She curled up on a thick patch of moss that covered the ground, and when she dreamed that night, it was only of being dragged down into the depths of the earth. 

Azula awoke to the dawn breaking with brilliant pink flames streaking the grey sky. It reminded her of Ty Lee somehow, and she almost laughed at the absurdity of the thought. Almost. She didn’t have time to dwell on it. A chill ran down her spine as the fog of sleep lifted and she was suddenly acutely aware of the sensation of being watched. 

“You were told to _leave_.”

Azula bolted upright, scanning her surroundings. The voice surely belonged to the Mother of Faces, but there was no sign of the spirit anywhere. Rubbing the corners of her eyes, she pushed to her feet and turned in a slow circle once more, exhaling as she concluded that it must be only a trick of her mind again. She considered that the Mother of Faces might never have been real at all. Her only proof that she hadn’t hallucinated it all was that she’d found the stream and foraged food that hadn’t killed her yet, but that _could have_ been coincidence.

Stretching, Azula decided she would make herself as comfortable as possible and go back to sleep when the distinct sound of a branch cracking caught her attention. She whirled and found herself face to face with a pair of yellow eyes set in a narrow, wolfish face. The beast’s hulking frame gave off an unearthly glow, and its teeth gleamed as it curled back its lips in a snarl.

Azula leapt backward and almost fell into the stream, but she managed to catch her balance. Instinctively, she shifted into a bending stance, raising her hands before her face. The beast crouched. 

“Last chance, foolish mortal,” the beast spoke without speaking. “Leave this place and do not return.”

She knew she should obey. The spirit had forgiven her trespasses and guided her toward life and was giving her yet another opportunity to keep it. 

_Please go_ , Ursa begged. _Run. Live._

 _Stay and fight_ , Ozai commanded. _Keep your last shred of dignity and die on your feet._

A perverse recklessness coursed through Azula’s body as she inhaled deeply and summoned what strength she could. The forest erupted with a flash of fire. The beast leapt aside and charged, hitting her with a force that sent the world spinning into darkness.

* * *

“I told you I don’t want anything from you! Leave me alone!” 

Azula pushed herself to her feet with surprising ease after the blow she had taken, quickly assuming a crouched stance. The Mother of Faces had assumed the form which Azula had first met her in, towering over her. 

“Is this how you repay mercy and kindness? You are even more ungrateful than every other selfish human I have ever encountered.” 

“You claim to help me then tried to kill me,” Azula laughed. “You’re even crazier than I am.” She inhaled, and with her exhaled breath leapt and spun, intending to unleash a wave of fire upon the spirit. She landed without producing so much as a spark. Alarmed, she wound her arm back and tried again, again with no results. “ _What is this_?” Azula demanded. 

The Mother of Faces sighed. “You have no power here. And no one tried to harm you. Do not ascribe your assumptions to my intentions. I told you to leave for your own good. If you stay in the forest you will die.”

“What concern is that of yours?!” Azula shouted. Suddenly, she realized that everything around her was wrong. She was still in the forest, or at least so it seemed, but everything was different. 

“This is _my_ forest,” the spirit thundered. “And I was foolish enough to take pity on a wounded human child. If you did not want my interference, you should have left when you were told. You have forced my hand.”

Azula realized then that she could see herself. Her body was lying exactly where it had landed when the wolf charged her. The Mother of Faces picked up her seemingly unconscious form and placed her on the wolf’s back, and the creature took off into the forest.

“ _What are you doing?!”_ Azula shrieked, watching her body be borne away on the creature’s back, looking down at her hands in alarm. “What is happening?”

“You are leaving. But first there is something you must see,” the Mother of Faces declared. She touched a tendril to Azula’s cheek, and suddenly they were somewhere else entirely. Somewhere familiar. Azula panicked.

“ _No!_ I’m not going back!” she shouted, trying to back away from the spirit’s magnetic force that held her in place.

“Calm yourself. They cannot see or hear you,” the Mother of Faces soothed. “Only your spirit is here.”

Just beyond the edge of the trees, everyone was gathered outside of the little home at the end of the forest. The komodo rhinos were packed for travel, stamping their feet impatiently. One of the beasts had been hitched to a cart, and in the cart a small pile of belongings was strapped down. Ikem sat in the driver’s place, waiting, as everyone else mounted their rhinos. Ty Lee looked weary where she sat in her own saddle, her face an expressionless mask. The Avatar turned and looked over his shoulder, staring into the forest, and Azula breathed in sharply.

“He knows we’re here,” she hissed.

“No,” the spirit corrected her. “He is more sensitive than most, but I am never seen unless I wish to be, and neither will you be while you are with me.”

Zuko exited the house then, and Ursa was the last to leave behind him, carrying Kiyi in her arms. She turned to look behind her after she descended the steps, and Azula could see that she was crying. Saddened to be leaving her home, surely. Zuko put an arm around her. 

“Why did you bring me here?” Azula demanded, somehow feeling an ache in her chest despite her disembodiment. 

“They have been here for nearly a month as you measure it, searching for _you_ ,” the Mother of Faces told her. “They invaded my forest daily, and I allowed them to do so unharmed. It is not too late for you to return to them.”

“ _No._ ”

“I do not understand you,” the spirit exclaimed. “They are your kind. They want you. You belong with them.”

Zuko helped Ursa and Kiyi settle into the cart before he moved to the front with Ikem. Ikem picked up the reins, and Zuko called out to make sure that everyone was accounted for and ready. Watching them, Azula hardened herself against any hope that what the Mother of Faces said could be true. They were leaving. She was certain that, having done their duties attempting to find a fugitive, they would all leave breathing a sigh of relief that they would never have to deal with her again. They would go home without her and be better off for it.

“You’re right, you don’t understand,” Azula retorted. “If they’ve been searching for me, it’s to punish me for what I’ve done. If they want me, it’s only because they want to lock me away. They’re afraid of me. _They hate me_. And they should.”

“You seem to have a habit of ascribing your own feelings to other people,” the spirit observed.

“You seem to have a habit of failing to mind your own business,” Azula snapped, crushing her pain and allowing anger to bloom in its place. 

“What occurs in my forest _is_ my business,” the Mother of Faces rumbled. “But I see now that I was mistaken to care for one so determined to destroy herself.”

“Well, that’s the first sensible thing I’ve heard you say,” Azula shot back, her voice dripping with venom.

“ _Enough_.” 

* * *

  
  


Azula startled awake, sitting up in her bed. She’d had a bad dream, but she couldn’t remember it. It slipped away with her sleep, and all she could concentrate on was the sound of hushed whispers and of feet pattering through the halls. She frowned and hopped out of her bed, throwing open the shutters of her window to see that it was not yet daylight. It was unusual for the servants to be so loud so early.

Quickly slipping on her shoes, Azula ran out of her room and skidded to a stop when she almost smacked straight into one of the servants.

“Oh! Forgive me, Princess,” the servant spluttered, making a pathetic attempt at a bow.

“What is going on?” Azula demanded. 

“Oh, ah, well-”

“Never mind,” she snapped, running off toward her mother’s room. She knew better than to depend on useless peasants for information, and the events of the previous day came back fresh in her mind as her sleep wore off.

_What is going on here? It’s time for a talk._

When she reached her mother’s room, Azula stopped outside and pressed her ear to the door, waiting. She heard nothing inside, so she pushed the door open. 

“Mom?”

The room was neat, dark, cold, and empty. Azula doubted the servants would have been through the room so early. The bed seemed like it hadn’t been slept in at all. 

_You must know the pain of losing a firstborn son by sacrificing your own._

Furrowing her brow, Azula quietly closed the door behind her and dashed back the way she had come, flying past her own room and further down the hall to Zuko’s room. She looked over her shoulder before quietly opening the door, and when she saw Zuko asleep in his bed, she released the breath she didn’t even realize she’d been holding. She was about to close the door when something caught her eye. Zuko’s prized knife, his gift from Uncle Iroh, sitting on his table. She slipped inside the room and swiped the knife, shoving it in her pocket before leaving as silently as she could. 

Outside, she saw several servants standing around whispering to one another. She glared at them, and when they realized they had been seen they all bowed and dispersed quickly. Something strange was going on, and she was determined to find out what. The idea of waking her father, especially so early, made her nervous, but surely he wouldn’t mind. He wouldn’t be angry. Not at her.

Azula made her way to her father’s chambers and stood outside the ornate door for a moment, unmoving. She took a deep breath and reached up to knock.

“Azula? What are you doing here?”

Azula spun around to find her father approaching.

“I was looking for you,” she admitted.

“Why are you awake at this hour?” Ozai inquired.

“I… I wanted to practice my bending,” she lied, unwilling to tell her father a bad dream had woken her. “And then I heard everyone running around, and I wanted to see what was going on. And I looked for Mom but I couldn’t find her.”

Ozai sighed and knelt down to bring his face level with hers. “Your mother is gone, Azula,” he said. His voice sounded sad, but his eyes didn’t look sad at all. 

“Gone?” she repeated, frowning. 

“She disappeared last night. Ran away. No one knows where she is,” Ozai explained. He rested a hand on her shoulder. “I need you to be strong, my dear. I know you will be.”

Azula was confused, and she felt like something had wrapped itself around her chest and started squeezing her, but she nodded anyway. She had to be strong for her father.

“That’s my girl,” Ozai said with an approving smile. He rose to his feet. “I must also tell you that last night, Fire Lord Azulon passed. We will hold a funeral ceremony for your grandfather later today.”

“He died?” Azula blinked up at her father in shock. She had known her grandfather couldn’t have much more life left in him, old and weak as he was, but the coincidence of his passing and her mother’s disappearance was too great to be ignored.

“Yes,” Ozai replied. 

“Does… does that mean Uncle Iroh is going to be the new Fire Lord?” she asked with a frown.

“No,” Ozai answered. “Fire Lord Azulon’s dying wish was that _I_ would succeed him to the throne, and so I shall.” 

Azula thought for a moment, then she clasped her hands behind her back and dared to ask. “Does that mean that Zuko will be Fire Lord someday too?”

Ozai smiled down at her, and for a moment she thought he was going to laugh. “Perhaps. Perhaps not,” he replied, patting her on the head. “Now run along and practice your bending, my dear. I have many things to attend to. Your grandfather’s funeral will also serve as my coronation, so make sure you and your brother are ready and at your very best.”

“Yes, Father,” Azula answered with a bow, and when he disappeared into his chambers she reached up and tidied the hair that he had mussed. 

She meant to do as she was bid, but when she passed her mother’s room again, she couldn’t resist going inside. She tore through the room, searching for clues about where her mother could have disappeared to. When she found nothing, Azula flopped onto her mother’s bed, staring up at the dark canopy. She didn’t know why, but she was angry. She felt an urge to blast fire at the bedding and burn the room to the ground, but she couldn’t risk getting into trouble. Instead, she pulled Zuko’s knife from her pocket, unsheathed it, and slashed the pillows and bedding. Feathers flew everywhere, and while it was nowhere near as satisfying as setting the room on fire would have been, at least the servants could clean up feathers. 

Unsatisfied but feeling somewhat better, Azula ran out of her mother’s room and slammed the door behind her. She tried to think about the good things. Her father would be Fire Lord, not their pathetic uncle. Ozai was a second child, and so was she. Maybe, someday, she could become Fire Lord too. 

She couldn’t wait to tell Zuko what had happened. For a moment, she thought about how he would feel when he found out their mother was gone. He would be upset, but he would have to learn how to be strong too, like her. Azula pictured Zuko crying over their mom, and she knew that wherever she was, she was probably crying over Zuko as well. 

Growing angry all over again, Azula decided against waking Zuko up to tell him, choosing instead to play with the knife she had stolen while he slept. For as long as she was the only one between the two of them who knew, she could pretend that their mom had been just as sad to leave her too.

* * *

  
  


Azula felt her spirit return to her body just as she was unceremoniously dumped into a heap on the ground. Every part of her ached, and her consciousness felt fuzzy around the edges. Groaning, she tried to sit up. She looked at her hands then touched her face, trying to make sure she was in one piece. When she recovered enough to take in her surroundings, she realized she was in a clearing on the edge of the vast forest. She spotted the spirit’s wolf-like form watching her from just inside the tree line as she struggled to her feet.

“You have pushed my pity to its limits,” the Mother of Faces’ voice emanated from the silent beast. “If you insist on destruction, do it on your own. I wash my hands of you.” The wolf turned and bounded back into the forest. 

“That’s right!” Azula shouted, her voice raw and cracking. “Run away!” she screamed, using her renewed connection to her physical form to throw a burst of fire toward the retreating spirit. It dissipated harmlessly into the air, and Azula dropped back to her knees, rage relieving itself in the form of tears. 

When she had spent herself, Azula noticed the stream that she had been following through the forest was running through the clearing as well, and its source appeared to be the mountains whose foothills she had been unwillingly transported to by the spirit. She sat there for a long while, staring up at the hills, uncertain what she should do. She could try to make her way back through the forest, or maybe find a way around it. She could go back to Hira’a now that Zuko and her mother and everyone else had given up and left, but then what? Even if she were not recognized, there was nothing for her in Hira’a. There was nothing for her anywhere. 

_Climb._

Ozai’s suggestion seemed ridiculous at first, but then that hardly mattered anymore. It was no more ridiculous than trying to go back into a spirit-ridden forest she’d just been forcibly expelled from or trying to reach some little village before she died of thirst or hunger. At least the mountains had the stream.

Azula stood up, taking a moment to steady herself. She was still dizzy, and her stomach hurt and her body ached, but she stepped forward into the hills with nothing left to lose.

  
  


* * *

  
  


She would never reach the summit. It didn’t take Azula long to realize that. She had picked her way through the foothills, following the babbling stream ever upward. She’d collapsed near some shrubbery on a short plateau and slept through the night, then picked herself up the next morning and continued climbing. If there was any passable trail to the summit to be found, she would never make it. Her body betrayed her with each step. The stream kept her going, but hunger and pain and exhaustion made her slow, made her stumble numerous times. She made it to a nearly flat outcropping beside a sheer cliff where the water from her stream tumbled over the sides of the rocks in a pleasingly perfect fall. Beyond the little waterfall, the cliffs reached up for the sky, so high that Azula almost couldn’t see the top, but her vantage point was high enough. Through the haze, she could see the entirety of the Forgetful Valley and the forest, and the mountains on the other side which they’d traveled through on the way to Hira’a. She wondered if they were all traveling back through those mountains at that very moment, on the opposite end of the valley which might as well have been the opposite end of the world. 

As she sat resting on her rock, beside her waterfall, on her mountain, Azula belatedly realized that her birthday would have passed her by unnoticed, unmarked. She couldn’t be certain which day, or even which week, as time had become a blur to her. But it had passed all the same. She was sixteen, and she was utterly alone.

 _Not alone, remember?_ Sitting beside her, Ozai shook his head. _I told you I wouldn’t leave you._

“Until I leave this world. I remember,” Azula responded with a grim smile.

_I am all you ever had. No one else ever loved you. All you had to do was what I asked, and you couldn’t even do that._

Azula closed her eyes. He was right, in a way. She was unloved and unlovable, and she had never been deserving. But Ozai never loved her either. He had only ever used her. She knew that now. 

“You’re a liar,” she whispered to the wind. 

_So I never loved you. Why should I have? You are useless and weak. My most bitter disappointment._

Azula laughed and rose to her feet, moving to the edge of the ledge. Ozai followed her. “I’m glad you lost,” she spat. “I’m glad _I_ lost if it means you will never win.”

 _You know why you’re here. Enough of your cowardice. Get it over with_ _already,_ Ozai hissed in her ear. _What are you waiting for?_

Azula inhaled deeply, feeling a strange sense of calm. The sun was setting on the horizon, splashing the valley with hues of orange and red, violent and beautiful. It seemed fitting. She fleetingly wondered if anyone would ever find her, or if she would simply be lost to history, the princess who went mad and disappeared into a mystical forest and never returned.

Then she made a mistake. She thought of her mother. Of Zuko. Of Ty Lee and Mai. Even of her little sister, who she ought to hate. She had rejected the gift the Mother of Faces tried to give her so that she would not lose them, only to end up here, at the precipice, about to lose them anyway. The irony of it all was not lost on her. 

_They are lost to you no matter what you do. End it now._

He was right, again. But as she gazed out over the valley, squinting into the brilliance of the setting sun, something sparked within Azula. It was only the tiniest ember. It wasn’t hope. It was something less enduring, but in the moment more powerful, and enough to set her alight. Enough to save her.

 _“Fuck you,”_ Azula snarled.

Spite ignited within her, and it was exhilarating. She clung to that feeling, letting it burn through her as if she were made of kindling. It was as good a reason to go on as any. Azula stepped back from the ledge and turned on her father, who could not have appeared more shocked. 

“ _I hate you_ ,” she crowed, and for a moment she was free. She inhaled deeply, feeling the rays of the sun on her skin and her pulse pounding through her body. She sank into a crouch, pointed her fingers, circled the air, energies flowing and separating at her guidance. They crashed back together with an electric clap, and she shot the lightning straight toward the image of her father.

Ozai disappeared, and the lightning cracked into the side of the cliff, sending a shower of small rocks and debris tumbling down into the depths.

Panting, laughing, Azula screamed into the abyss. She was alive and she would go on living, the rest of the world be damned. 

“ _You will not destroy me! You won’t win! Not today, not ever!”_

Trembling, Azula finally sat down and scooted as far back toward the cliff face as she could. She reached over to the gurgling waterfall and cupped the water in her hands, drinking in the sweet relief. She splashed her face and relished the sensation of the cold water on her sun-warmed skin. She inhaled and exhaled slowly, forcing control of her breathing. She absorbed the beauty of dusk settling over the valley as the sun dipped below the horizon, realizing she had so rarely in her life ever allowed herself to simply sit and breathe.

An abrupt bleating jolted her out of her moment of peace. Azula pivoted to find that she was not alone. A mountain goat stood on the narrow path to the ledge where she sat, completely still but for its methodical chewing, an unsettling eye fixed on her. 

Azula frowned, ready to shoo the animal away, when she realized that it had two baskets on either side of its body, strapped together over its back and around its chest. She pushed to her feet and saw a figure following up the trail a ways behind the goat. It appeared to be a woman, winding her way up with a walking stick, a bundle strapped to her back. 

She didn’t know what to do. The only way out was back down the way she had come, straight into the intruders. She could probably leap them and escape down the trail, she thought, though she was far from feeling her best physically. It was just one woman and a goat, after all.

“Hello up there!”

Azula cursed under her breath. As the woman drew nearer, she could see that she was older, more than middle-aged, with streaks of gray and white in her dark hair. She was small, but seemed strong. She was looking up toward the ledge and waving with an inexplicable smile. What in the name of the gods was she smiling at? Perhaps she was daft. And perhaps the simplest course of action was the best. 

She waited silently while the woman climbed the remaining distance and stopped just behind the goat, who had finally ignored Azula in favor of chewing on a bit of shrubbery growing alongside the trail.

“Hello,” the woman said again when she was within easier earshot. “What are you doing up here all by yourself?”

She seemed open and friendly, and Azula narrowed her eyes. 

“I could ask you the same question,” she finally hedged, her voice rasping uncomfortably.

“Well, I’m not alone,” the woman laughed, patting her goat. “We were just down in the hills gathering some herbs and wildflowers,” the woman explained. “I was heading home before dark, but thought I heard a commotion. And I thought I saw lightning, but…” she looked up at the clear twilight sky for emphasis, “there’s no storm! Highly unusual, if you ask me.”

Azula’s pulse jumped. “You should mind your own business and leave,” she warned. If the woman recognized her, she was a fool to think she could capture her. But the last thing she needed was anyone passing along information as to her whereabouts.

The woman’s brow furrowed. “Are you alright?” she asked in a softer tone. When Azula didn’t answer, she looked at their surroundings. “It will be dark soon,” she went on. “I live down in the hills, not far from here. It’s a quiet place. My nearest neighbors are in the village on the other side of the mountain. I was going to make a stew for dinner tonight, and I would love to have someone to share it with, if you would honor me with your company.”

Frowning, Azula studied the woman, trying to ascertain her motives. “Why?” she finally blurted out. “You don’t know me.”

The woman raised a brow. “Well then perhaps we should get to know one another. My name is Iriya,” she said with a polite bow. “This is my friend Zyn,” she added, indicating the goat. “And you are?”

Azula was silent for a few lingering moments. She couldn’t determine what possible reason an old woman wandering around in the mountains with a ridiculous goat would have for offering her hospitality, other than that it might be a trap. Yet it seemed unlikely that anyone in such a remote place could recognize her, and even if the woman suspected her identity, it was equally unlikely that she could know of her status as a fugitive. At least not so soon. Her stomach rumbled then, and Azula realized that she was starving. The offer of a hot meal was tempting. If this Iriya was trying to lure her into a trap, she reasoned, she was nearly certain she could evade it or overpower her if need be. Or she could simply allow whatever was to happen to happen.

“Azula,” she finally answered, speaking her real name as if daring the woman to recognize her. “And I suppose I could do with a meal,” she conceded.

“Excellent!” Iriya smiled up at her. “It’s been so long since I’ve had company. I do keep to myself most of the time, but sometimes it’s nice to have someone to talk to. Come along, and- oh! Zyn, move,” she chided the goat, prodding it from behind. The creature leapt nimbly up onto a higher ledge, allowing Azula to pass. “She’s something, isn’t she?” Iriya prattled on while proudly beaming up at her goat. “I found her orphaned in the hills as a kid and raised her by hand. She’s still a little wild, runs off on me every now and then, but she always finds her way back home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter summary: In the forest of the Forgetful Valley, Azula meets the Mother of Faces, who takes pity on her and offers her a chance to erase her past and become someone new. Azula rejects this offer, reluctantly admitting that she does not want to lose her memories of her former friends and family. The spirit then tries to help her leave the forest. Back on the outskirts of Hira’a, Zuko and his family and the Gaang are still searching for Azula, but they are losing hope. Zuko discusses recent events with Aang and expresses regret about Azula’s captivity in the asylum, suggesting that it could have been a mistake and believing it to have been harmful to her mental health. Aang sympathizes about the difficult choices Zuko had to make, then expresses concern about Ozai’s influence in the capital and worries for Zuko’s safety. Azula spends weeks alone in the forest, her depression deepening as she finally acknowledges herself as the loser in her battle against her brother. Her mental state is worsened by the spiritual effects of the forest, and eventually she loses her will to go on. The Mother of Faces tries to force her out of the forest to save her life, taking her into the spirit realm and showing her how her family stayed to search for her just before they leave to return to the capital. Azula refuses to go back with them, believing they only want to imprison her again and that they are better off if she disappears forever. Flashback to the royal palace the morning after Ursa poisoned Azulon and fled, from Azula’s POV. Young Azula experiences confusion and anger at her mother’s disappearance but buries those feelings to keep her father’s approval and expresses jealousy of Zuko’s relationship with Ursa. Back in the present, exasperated by Azula, the Mother of Faces expels her from the forest on the far side and sends her on her way. Urged on by her hallucinations of Ozai and believing she has nothing left to live for, Azula goes into the mountains, experiencing suicidal ideation along the way. She eventually confronts her hallucinations of her father and stands up to him, finding the will to live in pure spite and experiencing a sense of freedom when she finally admits to herself that Ozai never loved her, and that she in turn hates him. She bends lightning at her hallucination of him and in the aftermath experiences a moment of peace. Before she can leave the mountains, she encounters an older woman who implies she saw her lightning bending. The woman invites her to her home for a hot meal, and though suspicious and mistrustful of the stranger, Azula accepts her hospitality.


	12. Chapter 12

Iriya’s home was not far from the trail in the mountains, as she’d said, but was buried deep in the foothills that rose like sentinels around it. It was secluded, also as she’d said, and quiet but for the menagerie of animals she kept in a gated yard and thatched barn. It was a small clearing of mostly flat land in between the hills, just enough room for her home, her barn, and a few small plots where various plants grew. The road leading to the home was really more of a rocky trail that wound through the low valley, and Azula imagined that under the cover of darkness, Iriya’s property would be well hidden from anyone who might be traveling through. Even in daylight, one might need prior knowledge or luck to stumble upon her home.

“No one comes through here much,” Iriya explained when she noticed Azula analyzing the surroundings of her home. “There’s a road from Hira’a that goes around that forest and through the lower regions of the mountains here to the next village on the other side, but that’s a few miles from here, and even that road is not well traveled.”

“You’re familiar with Hira’a?” Azula asked casually as she waited for Iriya to settle her goat into its pen with the other animals for the evening. 

Iriya nodded as she carried the baskets which had been strapped to the goat and settled them in a small shed beside her house. “In fact, I was born and raised there,” Iriya explained, taking off her shoes outside the door.

Azula stiffened, her wariness of the situation growing, but she followed suit by removing her boots outside the door as well. Ursa’s letter fell out as she did so, and Azula quickly swiped it up from the ground and discreetly tucked it into her shirt. 

“Hira’a is a lovely place, but it wasn’t for me. Or, maybe I should say, _I_ wasn’t for them,” Iriya went on with a short laugh. “I still visit from time to time, but sometimes we’re just better off with a little bit of space between us.”

Azula followed her host inside the home and was met with a plethora of scents she couldn’t place, most of them pleasant enough. The home was small and clean, and well organized but for the strings of strange, dried plants hanging from the rafters. The source of the smells, she imagined. There was a small cot, a low table with worn-looking cushions, and a stone hearth with a variety of jars lined neatly along rows of shelving. Something leapt down from the rafters, startling her. 

Iriya noticed and smiled. “Oh, that’s Mizek,” she said, cooing at the white cat who had dropped into Azula’s path. “He’s not terribly excited about strangers, but he’ll warm up to you eventually.”

“I’m… not fond of animals,” Azula confessed, staring back at the green-eyed creature. “So I guess the feeling is mutual.”

Iriya seemed to think that was funny, but she distracted the cat with some sort of meat set into a bowl on the floor before she began preparing the meal she had promised. 

“Please, Azula, sit,” her host instructed, indicating the cushions around her little table. “Make yourself at home.”

Azula did as she was bid, only fully realizing how exhausted she was when she sank down onto one of the cushions offered. She yawned, instinctively lifting a hand to cover her mouth, and she _almost_ missed the fact that Iriya lit a fire in the hearth with no tools to aid her. _A firebender_. It seemed there was more to the woman than met the eye, and Azula pressed her lips together, wondering if she had made a mistake in coming.

“So,” Azula began conversationally as she watched Iriya prepare their meal. “You said you weren’t for the people of Hira’a. What does that mean?”

“Oh, it’s a long story,” Iriya replied. “But the short version is that sometimes people get ideas in their heads about people who are… different from them, and it can become difficult to live together.”

“How are you different?” Azula pressed, folding her hands beneath her chin and resting her elbows on her knees.

“You’re direct, aren’t you?” Iriya laughed. “Well, I was once mentored by a woman in Hira’a who was well known for her, ah, arts. She was a mentor of many women in Hira’a, in fact. She was a woman of means, as far as Hira’a goes anyway, and her position in the village shielded her to some extent from criticisms that those of us who were of a lesser stature had a more difficult time avoiding. It wasn’t impossible to remain there, but it was simpler to move away. And I’m happy with my little world here.”

Azula narrowed her eyes, shifting her gaze around the small dwelling again as she contemplated what _arts_ Iriya could be referring to. Her gaze landed on the cat, who had finished his meal and was sitting placidly on the other side of the room, staring at her again. She made a face at the creature. 

“But listen to me, going on about myself,” Iriya tutted, waving the knife in her hand absently as she chopped vegetables. “I still have no idea why I found a lovely young lady wandering in the mountains by herself,” she added, glancing over her shoulder at Azula. “You’re clearly not a traveler, or if you are, you’re the worst prepared traveler I’ve ever seen.”

Azula scowled. “I was… meditating,” she answered flatly. 

“Ah,” Iriya nodded. “A wonderful practice, though I must say I struggle with it myself. So hard to calm the mind and just _be_ sometimes, isn’t it. And may I ask where you came from? Or where you are going?”

“You may not,” Azula snapped, though the rudeness of her response suddenly stuck out to her in a way she was unaccustomed to. Maybe it was only because she was at such a low point and entirely dependent on the strange woman’s hospitality for her survival. “I would rather not talk about it,” she amended, pressing her lips together.

“That’s alright,” Iriya answered cheerfully. If she took note of Azula’s rudeness, she made no outward indication of it. “I would simply like to get to know my guest better, but your story belongs to you, and you are under no obligation to share it unless you wish.” 

Somehow, Iriya’s attitude elicited an urge to answer her questions and tell her whatever she wanted to know, but Azula took hold of the urge and squashed it. Even if there was no inherent danger in it, why should she tell this peasant woman anything about herself?

 _It might do you good, my love_ , Ursa whispered. _Not everyone is out to get you_.

Azula closed her eyes and bit down on the tip of her tongue. The last thing she needed was for this stranger to witness one of her episodes. 

“I don’t know where I’m going,” Azula blurted out, cursing herself internally the moment she did. “I just… haven’t figured it out yet.”

“Hm. A common problem,” Iriya sympathized, swirling a ladle through the now boiling pot of stew. “Especially for one so young. How old are you anyway? If you don’t mind my asking.”

“Sixteen,” Azula answered. _I think_. How pathetic that she was not even sure of her own birthday. She contemplated inquiring after the date, but held back when she realized that asking such a question would likely raise even more questions from Iriya.

“Why, you’re practically a baby!” Iriya exclaimed. “Pardon me, I don’t mean to be patronizing, I was just surprised is all,” she added quickly when she caught Azula’s frown, “but the older you get, Azula, the more young people in general will all start to seem very, very young in your eyes,” she laughed. “You’ll see one day.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Azula huffed. She wasn’t certain there would be a _one day_ for her, all things considered, but at least she had not succumbed to self-destruction that day.

 _Yes, darling. Live to fight another day._ Ursa sat beside her, placing a hand on her arm. _You're strong, and you are loved._

The backs of Azula’s eyes burned, and she choked back the urge to cry, clearing her throat quietly. The insistent growling of her stomach was fortunately louder.

“Almost ready,” Iriya commented. “There’s a basin over there where you can wash up, if you’d like,” she added, tilting her head backward to indicate the far side of the room. 

Azula took the opportunity, quickly getting up and walking over to the wash basin. She almost tripped over the cat on the way as it scurried in front of her. _You did that on purpose, you little bastard._ She cast a glare toward the retreating cat, who simply jumped onto the end of the bed and curled up in a perfect circle, completely unconcerned with her. 

By the time Azula returned to the table and sat, Iriya was ladling a bowl full to the brim with steaming stew for her. 

“I’m sorry to say I’m out of tea,” Iriya apologized. “It’s been a while since I made a trip into the village, but I would have made sure to have some if I had known I would be entertaining a guest.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Azula waved off her apology. She could scarcely think of anything but the food before her. It smelled delicious. 

“Please, go on,” Iriya urged. “Don’t wait for me.” She set down two cups and filled them with water from a simple porcelain jug before she filled her own bowl and sat.

Azula waited anyway. It took every ounce of her restraint, but she refused to take a mouthful until she had first seen Iriya do the same. Perhaps she was just paranoid, but she couldn’t take any chances. She caught a strange look from Iriya, but the woman did not comment on her refusal to eat. She simply sat and dug into her own bowl.

The food _was_ delicious, and Azula was halfway through a second bowl before she could even think of further questioning her unusual host.

“You mentioned making trips into the village,” Azula began eventually between bites.

Iriya nodded. “Usually to Laijee on the other side of the mountain. It’s closer. But every so often I do go back to Hira’a. I prefer Laijee, as it’s smaller, but sometimes it’s difficult to find all of the supplies I need there.”

“You seem…well-supplied as is,” Azula observed, glancing around the room.

Iriya smiled. “I know how to take care of myself, but I can’t grow _everything_ I need to live out of the ground. Believe me, if I could, I would!”

Azula finished her stew and set the bowl aside. She ought to thank her host for the meal and leave. Maybe find somewhere safe to sleep and try to make her way to the alleged village on the other side of the mountain at dawn. But she was tired and Iriya’s home was warm, and her curiosity had not been sated even if her stomach had.

“This mentor you mentioned in Hira’a...” Azula tried again. “What sort of arts were you speaking of?”

Iriya finished chewing a bite and dabbed at the corners of her mouth with a cloth. “Oh, yes. My mentor was a master herbalist. Something of a botanist too, really. A very wise and knowledgeable woman.”

Azula narrowed her gaze. “And the people of Hira’a took issue with women studying under an _herbalist_?” she pushed, deeply skeptical and sensing that there was much Iriya was not saying. “I understand this region to be…less advanced than other parts of the nation, but really, that seems like a bit of a stretch.”

“Like I said,” Iriya answered calmly. “People get ideas in their heads, and if they don’t take the time to learn the truth, or to understand others, well… you can end up with all sorts of misunderstandings. Twisted truths and outright lies. Fear.”

Azula considered Iriya for a moment. She really ought to leave, but she couldn’t help herself. 

“You’re a witch,” she asserted. It was a hunch, but she suspected Iriya’s reaction would tell her everything she needed to know.

Iriya smiled, and there was a hint of sadness to it. “I would not use that word, more so because it tends to frighten people than anything else, but what I consider myself seems to matter less than what other people do. For the record, your grandmother would not have used that word to describe herself either.”

“My _what_?” Azula demanded, staring at Iriya in shock.

“Your grandmother Rina was a great healer, Princess Azula. She was my mentor, and a dear, dear friend. I ought to have said so from the beginning, but it’s an honor to welcome you into my home in her name.”

  
  
  


* * *

Ty Lee stood at the edge of the ship, staring out at the waves lapping against the shorelines. They would be setting sail for the capital soon. Zuko had decided it would be faster and easier for everyone to travel to the nearest shore town from Hira’a rather than back go back the way Azula had led them. They sent a messenger hawk from Hira’a to the capital asking Iroh to send a ship for them, but they ended up not needing to wait for it. When they reached the little port town, they found a cargo ship docked which had room for them. The captain seemed more than happy to accommodate the Fire Lord by making a detour to the capital off his route. It was a relief. Everyone was sick of riding the komodo rhinos, and no one had been eager to spend another handful of days camping, especially with the added awkwardness of Zuko’s newfound family accompanying them. Ty Lee had always liked Ursa, and she liked Ikem well enough for how little she knew him, and baby Kiyi was adorable, but tensions and emotions were running high. Nearly everyone’s auras were either stressful or depressing, her own included. 

She still didn’t know if she had done the right thing by letting Azula go without a fight. She wanted to believe that she’d done it because she felt that it was the right thing to do, like some power beyond herself was guiding her intuition. Like she’d told Zuko. But the truth was more complex than that. The truth was that some part of her had been afraid. And another part of her couldn’t bear to see Azula in so much pain, and it was easier to let her go than to try to force her to stay, where she would have to witness her pain indefinitely. It was cowardly and selfish of her. She had volunteered for the trip, after all. And she voluntarily joined the Kyoshi Warriors, and voted to be Zuko’s personal guard. But she hadn’t volunteered for any of the rest. Joining the war was not her choice. She had never chosen to be a part of Azula’s life at all, really. Azula had chosen her, and she’d fallen into that tangled web with an enthusiastic innocence that hurt to think about now. She hadn’t really _chosen_ to fall in love with her best friend either. False friend. _Whatever._

 _Oh yes, poor me, just a victim of circumstance!_ Ty Lee sighed and flicked a pebble that was resting on the edge of the ship into the water. She had to stop berating herself for things that were beyond her control. _What’s done is done_ , as Aang had sagely told her while they searched together one day. _Dwelling on the past won’t change it._ However true, the advice was easier given than implemented, which he certainly knew.

“Ready to go home?”

Ty Lee turned to find Suki approaching. Her friend leaned against the side of the ship beside her as she turned to face her.

“I don’t know,” Ty Lee admitted. “On the one hand, I couldn’t wait to get away from that place. But on the other...I’m just upset. I wish none of this had happened.”

Suki offered a sympathetic half smile, and Ty Lee got the sense that she implicitly understood that she wasn’t only talking about the events of their trip. 

“Me too,” Suki agreed. “Much as I’m honestly relieved to be rid of that…” she waved her hands in the air as if searching for the right word, “ _monster_ , I still feel bad for Zuko and his mom. They seem pretty upset about everything. And I’m worried too. There’s no telling if or when _she_ might turn up again.”

“Yeah…” Ty Lee trailed off, wincing internally. “Hey look,” she began again in her most diplomatic tone, “I think we’re all entitled to our feelings about her, and Zuko doesn’t seem to be bothered by what anyone says, but I think we should be careful how we talk about her around Ursa. I just don’t think it’s necessary to make things any harder for her, you know?”

“Oh, yeah, of course!” Suki affirmed, holding up her hands. “Trust me, I would never say something like that in front of Ursa. Ooohh. Uhh, Sokka already kinda slipped up that way though,” she added, visibly cringing. 

Ty Lee blinked. “Oh no.”

“Yeah. He didn’t realize she was within earshot and he said some, ah, unfiltered things about Azula. I think he might have made Ursa cry. We felt horrible.”

Ty Lee expelled her breath in an exaggerated way, shaking her head. “Well, I doubt whatever he said was something Ursa wasn’t already aware of,” she offered. “It probably just hurt to hear someone saying it.”

“Probably,” Suki agreed. “But we still felt bad. At this point, I think we should just not even mention her name unless we absolutely have to. In fact, I’d be happy to never have to speak her name or even think about her ever again.”

“Yeah,” Ty Lee replied, pivoting back to face the water. She leaned her arms atop the rail and rested her chin on them. She only wished it could be so simple.

* * *

Azula sprang to her feet, instinctively glancing toward the door.

“Please!” Iriya held up a hand but otherwise didn’t move from where she sat. “Please, Azula, sit. I mean you no harm. I swear it on the bond between your grandmother and myself.”

“You knew who I was this whole time,” Azula accused.

“Yes,” Iriya admitted. “How could I not? I saw you bending lightning, a rare talent. Then I saw your face. You are the spitting image of your mother. I must say, you strongly resemble your grandmother also. And when you told me your name, well.”

Azula’s mind raced. If Iriya knew who she was, then she ought to have known that bringing her into her home was dangerous. Foolish, even. Unless she planned on using some sort of dark arts against her. But the woman remained as calm as a summer day, and she did seem to hold a strong sentimental connection to her grandmother. And then she mentioned Ursa…

“You knew my mother?” Azula hedged, watching Iriya warily.

“Oh, of course. Not very well, mind you. I spent a great deal of time with your grandmother, but your mother was a wild little thing, always tearing about the village and getting into trouble,” Iriya laughed. “As I recall she was more interested in the theater than in your grandmother’s line of work, but when she grew a little older she began studying under Rina as well. I left Hira’a not long after that though. I did see her once a few years ago, or perhaps it was last year…” Iriya scrunched her features as if in thought, then waved a hand. “Well, it was somewhat recently anyway. It was nice to see her again after so long.”

“What do you want with me?” Azula demanded. “Why did you bring me here?”

Iriya raised her eyebrows, seemingly surprised by Azula’s mistrust. “Because I found you alone in the mountains, looking desperately in need of help. What more reason should I need to help you?”

“But _what do you want with me_?” Azula repeated, failing to grasp Iriya’s motives.

Iriya blinked up at her. “I want you to have food in your belly and a safe place to rest your head,” she answered. “I would offer the same to any soul I found the way I found you, but the fact that you are the granddaughter of my one of my dearest friends is all the more reason for me to help you.”

When Azula could conjure no response beyond simply staring at her, Iriya smiled sadly up at her and patted the cushion beside her. “Please sit, Azula. Even if just for a little while. Humor me. You are free to leave whenever you wish, but I hope you will decide to stay and rest.”

She was entirely thrown off balance, and her suspicions lingered, but Azula could not think of a single solid reason why she shouldn’t do as Iriya asked. Slowly, she moved back to the table and resumed her seat, never taking her eyes from the older woman’s face.

“Thank you,” Iriya said, and with a whip of her fingers the candle in the middle of the table was lit, and the fire on the hearth roared a little brighter. “Now then. Why don’t we start over. You can tell me as much or as little as you want. All I ask is that you honor me with the truth.”

Azula shifted her gaze to the candle’s flame. It flickered and danced as if beckoning her. _Why not?_ _You have nothing left to lose._

She took a deep breath, then she told Iriya the truth. 

  
  


* * *

  
  


“Welcome home, Lord Zuko,” the steward greeted him with a bow as the guards opened the palace doors for him.

“Thank you,” Zuko replied wearily. “Please see to it that my guests are comfortable,” he added, indicating the rest of the group as they filed in from the courtyard. “They are all welcome as long as they’d like to stay. Oh, and have my mother’s old rooms prepared for her. She and her family will be staying for the foreseeable future.”

“Lady Ursa!” the steward exclaimed when he recognized Zuko’s mother. “Of course. How wonderful to see you again,” he said with another bow.

Ursa offered a tired but grateful smile as she greeted the steward and introduced him to Ikem and Kiyi. Zuko stepped past them, intending to thank his friends again for their accompaniment, but the sight of Uncle Iroh approaching from down the hall stopped him in his tracks. He waited for Iroh to reach him, and when his uncle approached with his arms extended, Zuko gratefully embraced the old man. When he pulled back, he found that Ursa was behind him, waiting to greet Iroh.

“Oh, Iroh,” Ursa exclaimed, hugging her former brother-in-law as soon as Zuko stepped out of the way. “It’s been so long. It’s so good to see you.”

“And you, Ursa,” Iroh responded warmly, returning her embrace. “I am so happy to see you alive and well after all this time.”

Ursa introduced Iroh to Ikem and Kiyi then, and Iroh made an appropriate to-do over the little girl. Kiyi seemed to find him amusing at first, but she was clearly tired and her amusement soon turned to fussing.

“I think I’ve disturbed this little one enough,” Iroh lamented when Kiyi began to squirm and squeal. “Let’s go talk, nephew,” he suggested to Zuko. “Unless you would like to rest first.” 

“No, it’s fine,” Zuko asserted. “I can’t rest yet.”

He informed everyone else that he and Iroh were going to meet and delivered his thanks to his friends before he followed his uncle off toward the Fire Lord’s study. Once inside, Zuko closed the door behind them and sank into the chair behind the ornate table covered in official state business.

“How are you?” Iroh asked him, his tone already sympathetic. 

Zuko was glad he had already briefly explained what happened in Hira’a in the letter sent by messenger hawk, as he didn’t think he would be able to recount the tale now. He ran his hands through his hair.

“I’ve been better,” he answered honestly. “I made a real mess of things.”

“You did the best that anyone could have done,” Iroh contradicted. 

“I’m sorry I left you here to take care of everything for so long,” Zuko replied. “I just couldn’t leave without _trying_.”

“I understand,” Iroh nodded. “I think you did more than most would have.”

“I know what you think of her,” Zuko went on. “It’s just… I understand her, I guess. Messed up as it is. And there were moments when I thought she was finally being real with me. I thought there was some kind of breakthrough happening. But I was wrong.”

“You kept everyone safe and brought your mother back home. That was your goal, wasn’t it?” Iroh pointed out.

“Yes, but I didn’t intend to lose Azula along the way.”

“Things happen that are beyond our control,” Iroh replied adamantly. “Trying to control everything that happens around you is a trap. It’s impossible, and it will destroy you if you try to hold on too tightly.”

Zuko nodded, though acknowledging that his uncle was right didn’t ease the burden he felt. 

“Here,” Iroh altered the subject, pulling a paper from the top of a stack near the edge of the desk. “I had these made up, like you asked.”

Zuko stared at the poster as he took it from his uncle’s hands. Azula’s face stared back at him, though it was not quite right. It was too young, he realized, based on a painting that was a few years old. Her expression in the picture was placid, her hair up the way she used to wear it, and not a single strand out of place. He couldn’t rightly ask the artist to redo it to make her look older, to make her eyes angrier, the way she’d been the last time he saw her. It would have to do. At least they’d gotten the strict warning right, directly beneath her face: _Do not approach or attempt to apprehend. Reward for valid information only_. 

“That’s fine,” Zuko sighed, handing the poster back to Iroh. “Thank you. I need copies of these in every town and village in the country, as soon as possible.”

Iroh furrowed his brow, and Zuko could tell his uncle did not approve of this step he insisted on taking. Maybe the memory of seeing their own faces on wanted posters -Azula’s doing- was too fresh, or maybe he simply thought that going to such lengths to find her was still _holding on too tightly_. In that moment, Zuko didn’t care. She was his responsibility, and what was more... she was his little sister. Still. She was gone, and he would give any reward, even if only to know that she was safe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi readers. I’m sure it’s obvious, but just a quick note to confirm that at this point we are done with any major resemblance to the storyline from the comics. There will probably be a few ideas or themes from the comics that come into play later in the story, but for the most part, from here on out, we’re in uncharted waters. Thanks for being lovely, and happy(??) reading!


	13. Chapter 13

Ty Lee rocked back and forth from her heels to her toes as she waited outside of Mai’s family home in the Caldera, finding it unusual for someone not to answer the door immediately. She hadn’t visited Mai's home in a while though. She’d never really needed to go out of her way to see her friend before, as Mai had just been a fixture around the palace prior to her breakup with Zuko. She never said so, but Ty Lee was certain Mai had been there as much to get away from her family as she had been to spend time with Zuko. When her family returned to the capital from liberated Omashu, Mai lost the short-lived peace and privacy she’d had in her home.

Finally, a servant opened the door and ushered Ty Lee inside, full of apologies for the delay. She was in the middle of assuring the woman that she didn’t mind at all when Michi appeared.

“Ty Lee, sweetheart!” Michi exclaimed. “Forgive our rudeness for making you wait. We’ve had to let go of a number of our servants, you see,” she went on, casting a harsh look toward the servant who’d answered the door. “We’re spread a little thin.”

“It’s alright!” Ty Lee reassured, feeling badly for the servant woman who bowed and scurried away from her mistress’s criticism. “I’m off duty today, so I have nothing but time.”

Michi nodded. “Mai will be home from the shop soon. Please, come in and relax. I’ll have some tea brought for you while you wait.”

Ty Lee followed Michi to a low couch and sat, smiling politely as she responded to Michi’s small talk yet wishing Mai weren’t late in returning home. 

“It’s just been _so_ difficult,” Michi babbled on. “I told Ukano he should have just accepted the position Lord Zuko offered, but his pride wouldn’t suffer it. And now look at us!”

Ty Lee did take a good look at her surroundings, and it made Michi’s complaints sound all the more ridiculous. Their home was expansive and expensive, ornate and full of luxuries most people couldn’t fathom. Even Ty Lee’s family, comfortable as they were, could not compare. Only the inhabitants of the royal palace across the way could boast a more beautiful home, though that was doubtless what someone like Michi compared her circumstances to. 

“I’m sure it’s been an adjustment,” Ty Lee commiserated, trying her best to sound sincere. 

“And then my daughter! Can you imagine having a royal’s heart in your hands and just _throwing it away_ for no good reason?” she exclaimed. “And my foolish husband encouraged it! He told her he was proud of her for it! _Imagine_.”

“I’m not sure I can,” Ty Lee replied with a shake of her head. “Lord Zuko has become one of my best friends, and I was sad to see them split. But Mai has to do what’s right for herself,” she added in defense of her friend. “Even if that means leaving the Fire Lord.”

“Not you too!” Michi tutted. “I don’t know what’s gotten into all of you young people today. In _my day_ , we understood what was expected of us and did what was best for our families, without complaint.”

“ _Gods,_ Mom,” Mai intoned as she stepped into the room. “Leave Ty Lee alone.”

“Oh, Mai! I didn’t even hear you come in,” Michi exclaimed. 

“That’s because I don’t go around making a spectacle of myself for no reason,” Mai replied dryly, and Ty Lee had to stifle a smirk as she jumped up to hug her friend. 

“Well, someone is in a mood,” Michi huffed. “Was the shop that bad today?”

“It wasn’t bad at all,” Mai retorted. She returned Ty Lee’s hug with more enthusiasm than usual. Probably because she was grateful she wouldn’t have to deal with her mother alone for a little while. 

Michi muttered something that sounded like a complaint about her daughter _working_ in a flower shop, as if it were some sort of terrible fate. 

“So, you’re in one piece,” Mai remarked, ignoring her mother.

“Physically, anyway,” Ty Lee replied with a grimace. “It was rough.”

“Yeah, I figured. I’ve seen the posters.”

“Oh, _goodness_ ,” Michi cut in. “I’ve seen them as well. What an awful, scandalous thing this whole affair has turned out to be. Poor Lord Zuko. Of course it’s _wonderful_ that Lady Ursa has returned, but with a new husband and a child? Very unusual, if you ask me. And the disgraced Lord Ozai, rotting away in prison. And the Princess gone insane, and a fugitive-”

“ _Mom_.”

Ty Lee pressed her lips together as Mai turned on her mother. 

“Can you _please_ just let Ty Lee and I talk? _Alone_?”

Michi crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m just concerned about you, darling. Do you think we should be worried?” Michi directed her question to Ty Lee, brow furrowed, ignoring Mai’s request.

Ty Lee sighed. “Probably not. But it wouldn’t hurt for everyone to just stay alert, that’s all.”

“I think I heard Tom-Tom yelling out in the garden, Mom,” Mai interjected quickly before Michi could get another word in. 

Finally, Mai’s mother took the hint and retreated to elsewhere in the home after bidding Ty Lee a good evening.

“She’s killing me,” Mai commented once the servant who brought their tea departed as well and they were completely alone. “And somehow my dad is even worse.”

“I thought he was more supportive of you?” Ty Lee asked, quirking a brow. 

“He is, but it’s not because he actually gives a damn,” Mai replied. “It’s just because my personal decisions happened to align with his political opinions. I still have to listen to him complaining about the supposed misery of his situation and talking badly about someone I care about. Cared about,” she corrected quickly. 

Ty Lee almost commented on Mai’s slip, but chose not to in consideration of her mood. “That sounds irritating,” she sympathized instead. 

“Yeah,” Mai expelled her breath in a huff that touched the ends of her fringe. “But enough about my family drama. Tell me about the trip,” she demanded. “And forget what you told my mom. Be honest with me…do I need to be worried?”

“I don’t think so, really,” Ty Lee tried to reassure her friend. “Keep an eye out and all, but…I mean, _I’m_ still here. If Azula was bent on revenge, she could have started with me at pretty much any point out there.”

“That’s not very reassuring. I’m the one who defied her first. You were protecting me. Besides, she always liked you more than me anyway,” Mai pointed out.

“Why do you say that?” Ty Lee blinked up at Mai in surprise.

“Uh, because it’s obviously true?” Mai laughed shortly.

“Well _if_ that was true, then what I did should have put me in the top spot on the murder list, right?” Ty Lee reasoned.

“Yeah, well, it didn’t. She was going to kill me. She could have had us both executed even after you knocked her flat, but she didn’t.”

“So maybe that means neither one of us need to be too worried. Besides, I…I don’t think Azula’s coming back.”

Mai raised a brow. “What does that mean?”

Ty Lee took a sip of her tea, then a deep breath, then related the whole story in as much detail as she could remember. Truthfully, some parts of it were becoming a blur already. When she was done, Mai sat staring at the floor for a few long moments before she raised her eyes back to Ty Lee’s.

“So...when you said you don’t think she’s coming back…” Mai hedged. “Are you saying you think she’s dead?” she finally asked.

Ty Lee averted her gaze down to the cup of lukewarm tea resting in her lap. “I don’t know,” she finally answered quietly. “Part of me thinks I would _know_ it if she was, you know?”

“No,” Mai replied. “I don’t believe in that kind of stuff, you know that.”

“Right.”

“Are you hoping she’s dead?” Mai asked bluntly.

“ _No!_ ” Ty Lee looked up at Mai quickly, horrified by the thought. “Are you?”

Mai seemed to consider the question, then she shrugged. “I don’t know if _hoping_ is the right word, but I wouldn’t be sorry if she was. I wouldn’t have to worry that some day she’s going to come back and finish me off. I would be sorry for Zuko, though. Considering how he feels, that would be awful for him.”

“Yeah,” Ty Lee nodded, feeling an uncomfortable sensation of tightness in her chest. “For Zuko.”

* * *

“Where are we today, Azula?”

Azula sat cross-legged at Iriya’s table, head in her hands, half-finished breakfast sitting in front of her, considering the question she’d been asked nearly every morning for the last three weeks. It was Iriya’s odd yet oddly comforting way of determining how to proceed with the day.

“Somewhere between ‘I could use some space’ and ‘speak to me again and I’m going to challenge you to an Agni Kai’,” she answered honestly.

Iriya’s laugh was quiet and warm. “Duly noted,” she responded. “I’m going into Laijee today, then. You’re welcome to join me, but I’ll take that to mean you aren’t up for it.”

Azula shook her head. “I wouldn’t go even if I were,” she replied.

“Ah. I suppose the villages aren’t for everyone, but perhaps someday you’ll change your mind. A little change of scenery every now and then is good for the soul,” Iriya postulated as she busied herself gathering her needs for the trek.

Azula snorted. “That’s an odd statement coming from someone who lives alone in the mountains.” She should have been irritated by Iriya’s implication, but she couldn’t actually argue with the fact that having scarcely moved from the little house in nearly a month was not the best for her mind or body.

“I don’t really live alone, you know,” Iriya commented, glancing over her shoulder at Azula. “And I don’t mean _you_ , dear, happy as I am to have you.”

“I don’t think all of your animals count,” Azula argued. Her host had a way of drawing her out despite herself.

“I disagree,” Iriya replied as she bent down to scratch Mizek behind the ears as he rubbed against her ankles. “And you haven’t considered my green friends either,” she added. “Still, you’ll keep an eye on them all for me today, won’t you?”

Azula lifted her head and simply stared at Iriya. She was being an ungrateful wretch, she knew it, but the urge to push the older woman was too strong. Everyone had a breaking point. Eventually she would find Iriya’s.

“Just don’t let any wild puma goats make off with the chickens? That’s all I ask.”

“Fine,” Azula replied, closing her eyes. 

“Thank you,” Iriya smiled at her. “Any requests?”

Azula shook her head slowly. Nothing Iriya could pick up in the village could fix what was wrong with her. 

“Then I’m off,” she asserted, shouldering a small basket. “I’ll be home by dark. You should sit outside for a little while today. Get some sunshine. It looks like it’s going to be a beautiful day.”

Actually irritated then, Azula simply rubbed her temple and did not respond. Iriya took the hint and left, hitching her basked to her pet goat and heading off toward the road to Laijee with the stupid beast bleating happily alongside her. 

Azula stood up and stretched, reasoning that if anything came down from the mountains and attacked the chickens she would probably hear it in time to intervene. 

Sitting by the doorway, Mizek meowed at her as she laid back down on her cot.

“ _You_ keep an eye on the damn chickens,” she grumbled at the cat as she pulled up her blanket and attempted to go back to sleep.

When Azula awoke again, the sun was still shining brightly. She intended to sleep the entire miserable day away, but her body would not cooperate. Sighing, she finally forced herself out of bed and changed her clothing. Iriya had provided her with a few garments, some of which were too loose, but all were comfortable enough even if they weren’t anything like what she was used to. Iriya had tried to tempt her into the village once before with a promise that they could find her new clothing and she wouldn’t have to wear her hand-me-downs, but Azula refused. Her aversion to entering a village in general aside, it occurred to her that something new would have to be paid for, and she had nothing. It was an unpleasant realization. She’d never had to worry about such things before. She supposed she could steal easily enough, but the risk of bringing more unwanted attention to herself was not worth it.

Azula splashed her face with cool water from the wash basin and tried to put her hair up into a top knot. She was more or less successful, though the end result was far from satisfactory. She couldn’t bring herself to care. 

Slipping into a pair of soft shoes, Azula stepped out of the house and walked toward the thatched barn to check on the animals, squinting against the brightly shining sun as she went. She really had been spending far too much time inside, though there were some days where merely getting out of bed felt like a monumental effort. 

Relieved to find the smelly menagerie safe and sound, Azula decided she would take Iriya’s advice and simply exist outdoors for a little while. She found an old blanket to spread out on a patch of grass and sat. Recalling her first meeting with Iriya when she’d lied about meditating on the cliff, Azula decided to actually try it, as she had nothing better to do. She faced the sun and folded her feet beneath her, closing her eyes. She tried to focus on the feeling of the sun’s rays warming her face and the breeze whipping small strands of hair across her skin.

 _What a complete waste of an existence._ Ozai was laughing at her. _Why even bother?_

Brow furrowing, Azula tried to tune her father’s voice out. She remembered her old firebending master, trying teach her _his_ way, encouraging her to meditate. What was that she’d said to him? Something about how she was _special_ and she didn’t need to do as he said. When he insisted, she told him she would burn his home down around him while he slept. She was six. Maybe younger. When her master repeated the tale to her parents after her training, her father laughed. Ursa tried to talk to her about it later, when Ozai was gone, but it was too late. She had her father’s mark of approval, and that was what mattered. That was all that had ever mattered, as far back as she could remember.

_Yes, go on and blame me if that makes you feel better. If it helps you live with yourself._

Azula jumped as something brushed against her back. Opening her eyes, she found that the cat had followed her outside and swished its tail against her as it prowled behind her.

“Go away,” she hissed, and the creature gave a trilling chirp in response before it strolled away from her. 

Azula sighed and stood up. Meditating was hopeless. But she had better ways of balancing herself. It had been too long. She stood up straight and breathed in deeply, lifted her arms, and sank into her first form.

* * *

  
  
  


“Zuzu!” Azula shrieked, clapping her tiny hands together with glee. “Mama, look!” she squealed, pointing a stubby finger toward her big brother. 

“I saw, darling, I saw,” Ursa acknowledged, dropping a kiss to the top of her daughter’s head where she rested in her lap. She smiled while watching her son show off the product of all of his hard work. “We’re so proud of Zuko, aren’t we?”

Azula squirmed out of Ursa’s lap and ran over to her brother. 

“Zuko, watch!” Ursa cautioned as he managed to send a small plume of flame into the air a moment before Azula reached him.

“I know, Mama!” Zuko answered, halting his practice to grab his little sister by the hands and swing her in a circle. 

Thrilled, Azula screamed and tried to keep up, spinning around with her brother until they both fell into a heap on the floor, dizzy and laughing hysterically. Ursa laughed along as she watched them. 

“What is all of that _noise_?” Ozai’s imperious voice rang out as he entered the room, quickly silencing the children.

“They were just playing, Ozai,” Ursa responded, rising to her feet.

“Oh, were they? _Zuko_ was supposed to be training,” Ozai snapped, glaring down at his young son where he sat on the floor.

“Daddy!” Azula threw her arms in the air expectantly, seemingly unfazed by her father’s mood.

Ozai scooped up his daughter and promptly set her aside, out of the way, his withering gaze never leaving his son. Ursa tried to step between her son and her husband, but he shot out a hand to prevent her from coming closer. 

“Well, since you seem to have so much time to _play_ , let me see what you have learned today,” Ozai commanded, folding his arms across his chest.

Zuko looked to his mother, who gave him a little nod and an encouraging smile. Zuko slowly rose to his feet, trembling under the scrutiny of his father’s gaze. He took a deep breath and moved through his forms, doing his best to remain steady. He failed to produce more than a short, sputtering flame.

“Daddy!” Azula’s voice rang out. 

“Quiet, Azula,” her father admonished, not bothering to look at her, his lips pressed into a thin line as he watched his son’s demonstration.

“Daddy, _look_!” Azula demanded.

Azula’s round face was illuminated by a steady fire dancing over her tiny palms. She was looking up at her father, waiting. When Ozai finally turned to rebuke her again, he stopped short and stared at his daughter in wonder. 

Azula beamed up at her parents, her control of the flame never breaking despite her distraction. When she noticed her brother staring at her as well, she ran to his side and extended her hands, showing off her accomplishment. “Zuzu, look! I'm like you,” she declared happily before she allowed her flame to dissipate.

“No,” Ozai corrected, approaching both of his children. He knelt down and smiled at his daughter, smoothing a hand over her hair. “No, Azula, you’re not like your brother at all.” When Ozai lifted his little girl up in his arms, she threw her arms around his neck and squeezed. 

“We’re going to get you your own firebending master immediately,” Ozai promised his daughter. “It’s high time you began your training as well, my little prodigy,” he asserted proudly.

“Ozai, she’s only three!” Ursa objected. “There’s no need to-”

“ _I_ decide what there is a need for, not you,” Ozai cut his wife off. “You spoil and coddle our son, and _look at him_ ,” he went on, indicating Zuko derisively. “He will never even be an acceptable bender at this rate, let alone proficient.”

“He’s _five_ ,” Ursa argued, moving to place a protective hand on her son’s shoulder. “He’s more advanced than most children at such a young-”

“He is a _prince_ , not _most children_!” Ozai thundered. 

Zuko burst into tears, which only heightened his father’s anger. Only then did Azula show the effect of Ozai’s mood, her lower lip jutting out and trembling as she watched her brother cry, but she did not allow herself to do the same.

“Give her to me, please,” Ursa pled, stepping in front of Zuko and holding out her arms for her daughter. “Let’s talk about this later, when everyone is calmer.”

“No,” Ozai responded coldly, blocking his wife’s attempt to take Azula from his arms. “My daughter is destined for greatness. She will be guided accordingly, and I will not allow you to ruin her. Her training begins _today_.”

  
  


* * *

Iriya returned just before sundown, and her only comment on the patches of scorched grass outside of her home was that she was glad to see Azula had taken her advice to spend some time in the sun. 

“Did you feel any better afterward?” Iriya asked Azula as she busied herself unpackaging the supplies she had brought home. 

Leaning against the door frame watching her, Azula simply shrugged. The fresh air and exercise _had_ eased her despondency somewhat, but she would not admit to it. Iriya glanced at her with a keen eye, and Azual frowned in response. 

“What?”

“I have something to show you, but it can wait if you’re not in a good frame of mind,” Iriya responded. 

Azula straightened and approached her. “No, show me now. What is it?”

Iriya reached into her outer tunic and pulled out a rolled up sheet of paper. She handed it to Azula wordlessly.

Azula took it from her and unrolled it, her breath catching as she saw her own image plastered over the poster. It included her identity, a warning, and the promise of a reward for information. She looked up at Iriya in alarm.

“This was in Laijee?” she demanded. 

“Posted in the market,” Iriya replied carefully. 

“That bastard,” Azula breathed, anger welling in her. He already had everything. Why couldn’t Zuko just leave her alone and let her go?

Iriya raised her brows in surprise. “Why do you say that?” she queried.

Azula crumpled the poster in her hand. “Why do I say that?” she demanded. “About my brother who’s offering a reward to whoever helps him lock me up again?”

“Are you certain that's his intent?” Iriya asked.

“Of course it is,” Azula retorted, though the mere question made her think twice. She remembered their last encounter on the edge of the forest, how Zuko had stood down and begged her to just wait. It was probably cowardice.

Iriya turned aside and continued storing away her various parcels. “I thought you told me that your brother promised you freedom as a part of your bargain.”

“That was before I nearly killed our mother,” she countered. “He would never forgive that.”

“You said your mother told you she loved you, even after that. You said they stayed to search for-”

“I know what I said!” Azula snapped, not wishing to be reminded. “I'm sure she was just trying to manipulate me, and I would never have told you any of those things if I had thought you would try to use them against me.”

Iriya turned to her fully then. “I’m not using anything against you. I’m just trying to understand why you believe your family wants to hurt you. Is that who they are?” she inquired gently.

Azula choked back the emotion that lumped in her throat. _No. Yes. They already hurt me. I want to hurt them_. Defensive, Azula balled her hands into fists. 

“I don’t mean to upset you,” Iriya tried to placate her. “It just pains me to think that you might be misinterpreting what your family wants.”

“I’m not going back,” Azula uttered hoarsely. “If you don’t want me here any longer, then just say so and I’ll leave.”

Frowning, Iriya reached over and laid a hand on Azula’s arm. “That is not at all what I-”

Azula jerked away from her touch. “Stop being a coward and just say it! Tell me you want me gone!”

Iriya stepped back and simply shook her head. “I _don’t_ want you gone, Azula. I want you here.”

“Why?” Azula demanded, eyes narrowing. “I’m no good to you whatsoever. You have nothing to gain by my presence, unless you’ve already sold me out for a reward and want me to stick around ‘til my brother’s soldiers show up so you can be sure to collect.”

Iriya ignored the accusation, tilting her head to the side as she considered Azula. “Why do you assume that you have to be of some good or use to me in order for me to want you here? Is it not enough that I like you and want to help you?”

“You _like_ me?” Azula laughed harshly at that. “Well, now I know you’re a liar.” She glanced around her surroundings shrewdly, then brought her cutting gaze back to Iriya’s face. “You know, I think I’ve finally figured you out, Iriya. It’s taken me a while, as you’re quite unlike anyone I’ve ever encountered before. But I understand now.”

Iriya frowned, but she did not back down. “Well go on then. Explain it to me.”

“I don’t _actually_ think you sold me out for a reward,” Azula asserted. “You’re not exactly the materialistic type. No, I think it’s something a little more than that. I don’t know _what_ it is exactly, but I sense that some deep personal failing in your life is what drives you to take in orphaned goats and fugitive princesses. You find poor creatures you deem helpless and take it upon yourself to help them. It’s the only way you can give your life meaning.”

She had wondered before if her host was completely imperturbable, but now she knew otherwise. Iriya’s placid expression faltered, and Azula knew she had finally hit her mark. 

“Do you feel better now?” Iriya asked, the timbre of her voice betraying her emotions.

Azula did not feel better, but she lifted her chin haughtily. “Well, am I wrong?” she pushed.

“Yes, you are,” Iriya replied flatly, her steely gaze not faltering from Azula’s. “I do find meaning in what I do, including taking care of any soul I come across in need of refuge. And I _do_ have regrets in life that inform the choices I make now. But that does not mean what you are twisting it into meaning. I like to think I would be doing the same things that I am now even if I had nothing worth regretting in my life.”

Azula folded her arms over her chest as she contemplated the older woman, and she couldn’t find a hint of insincerity in her. Guilt pricked at her.

“What is worth regretting in your life, then?” Azula asked, deflecting.

Iriya raised a brow. “You told me your story. I’m happy to tell you the rest of mine, if you wish. Sit, I’ll make us some tea.” 

Azula relented, and when they were settled comfortably around the table with steaming cups of the tea Iriya had brought home from the market, Iriya waited a moment for Mizek to settle into her lap before she began her story.

“So, you know that I was born and raised in Hira’a. I had a simple life and a happy childhood. My parents owned a small tea shop, and I took over the place when they passed in my early adulthood. That’s where I met your grandmother when she moved to Hira’a with her husband, Jinzuk. Rina and I soon became the closest of friends. We were friends for a good number of years before I ever took an interest in her crafts and asked her to teach me. We kept things as quiet as possible, for a number of reasons, but gossip spreads fast in a place so insular.” Iriya paused to take a slow sip of her tea.

“Well, things were fine regardless for a number of years,” Iriya continued. “I was happy. Whatever was said about us and our work, no one bothered us much, and we were sought out for the aid we could give. When I grew proficient enough in the craft she taught me, we began mentoring others in the village together. Eventually, things happened that led to Rina and I falling out, and I left Hira’a not long after.”

Azula raised a brow. “A fight with a friend? That’s your great regret?”

Iriya raised a hand and took another sip of her tea before she continued.

“Patience. You see, at first Rina and I were of one mind about our work. She taught me healing arts, as well as some more dangerous skills. She knew how to craft poisons that could kill quietly, painlessly, completely undetected. She insisted that such arts were only ever to be used as acts of mercy. For example, to put down a sick animal or to be gifted to someone old and ill and of a clear enough mind to choose to end their own suffering with dignity. She was a magistrate’s wife, after all,” Irya said with a sad smile pulling at the corners of her lips. “Eventually, I came to see things differently. We would be approached by people who were suffering in other ways, seeking our help, and Rina always turned them away.”

“Suffering in what ways?” Azula prompted when Iriya paused, intrigued.

“In ways that could not be healed with some herbs or an ointment,” Iriya replied. “I thought it was wrong of us to turn away people who were powerless and in need of help that they would never find in the law or in more traditional sources. One night, a woman from another village came to us, begging for help. She was covered in bruises. Her husband was a violent man, and she feared for her life, as well as for the lives of her children. The law was no help to her, as her husband was a man of some importance in their village, a merchant of sorts as I recall, well-connected to an old and influential clan. Well, Rina was distressed, and she offered for Jinzuk to accompany the woman back to her village in the morning to see if there was any way he could use his influence to help her. But the woman rejected this offer, as she believed her husband would kill her if he ever found out she had sought help at all. Rina offered refuge in her home, but the woman insisted she and her children would never be safe so long as her husband lived. Believing there was nothing else she could offer the woman, Rina turned her away, full of apologies. I could not. I went behind her back and gave the woman what she sought. Her husband passed in his sleep. When Rina found out what I had done, she was horrified and furious. She never told another soul, not even Jinzuk, but we were never the same after that. That was the main reason why I left.”

Fascinated yet still confused, Azula prodded further. “Are you saying you regret poisoning a man who might have killed his wife and children?”

“Gods, no,” Iriya corrected quickly, shaking her head. “That I stand by. But I wish that I had done things differently in the aftermath. I wish I had tried harder to find common ground with your grandmother. I wish that I had been less concerned with all of the gossip and rumors. I wish that I hadn’t been so hasty to leave Hira’a. And I wish that I had returned when Rina needed someone. Needed me.”

Brow furrowed, Azula sipped her tea and waited for Iriya to explain.

“Your grandparents had a very difficult time when your mother was taken from Hira’a, Azula. They were not allowed any contact with her at all. To hear the citizens of Hira’a tell it, it was as if their daughter had died. I heard about Ursa’s departure and marriage to the Prince, and I heard how hard your grandparents were taking it, but I did nothing. Then Jinzuk died suddenly and Rina was left entirely alone, and still I did nothing.”

“He died suddenly?” Azula questioned, quirking a brow. “How?”

“I don’t know for sure,” Iriya replied. “In Hira’a they said his heart failed. He was not ill, as far as I am aware.”

“And my grandmother?”

“She passed as well not long after,” Iriya answered, a deep sadness evident in her voice. “I don’t know what happened. Some said they thought she died of a broken heart, having lost both her husband and her daughter, but I never believed that. Rina was a strong woman. Regardless, I should have been there for her. But I was too proud. I was right, and she was wrong, and I was too stubborn to try to make amends. I suppose I always thought there would be time, and then one day, there was no more.”

Azula stared into her emptied cup for a moment, trying to make sense of everything Iriya had told her. The circumstances of her grandparents’ deaths piqued her curiosity as well, but she couldn’t see a way to look into it further without going back to Hira’a herself, which she had no intention of doing. She also couldn’t bring herself to ask Iriya any of the lingering questions that nagged at her, so she settled for an observation.

“You know taking me in isn’t going to bring my grandmother back,” Azula commented sharply, finally raising her gaze back to Iriya’s. “Though I suppose if it eases your guilt, it’s no concern of mine.”

The older woman rolled her eyes. “How did I know _that_ is what you would take away from my story?” 

Azula raised her brows, and Iriya tutted at her. “You’re becoming predictable already, Azula. If you ever want to take me off guard, you could try extending a bit of trust. Maybe give me the benefit of the doubt once in a while. Now _that_ would truly shock me.”

Gaze narrowing, Azula considered Iriya for a moment. “Well, you _did_ just confess a murder to me,” she reasoned.

“You’ve confessed to a few unsavory things yourself, child,” Iriya countered, a smile tugging at the corners of her lips. “So I suppose if we’re to get along, we’re going to need to trust one another.”

 _Trust is for fools_.

Azula hushed the voice in her head. She couldn’t _trust_ Iriya, nor anyone else for that matter, not really. But she could at least live as if she did. Trying to parse motives and find reasons for constant battle was growing exhausting. Perhaps it wouldn’t hurt to just rest for a little while. 


	14. Chapter 14

Zuko drummed his fingers nervously across the table top. She was late. Maybe she changed her mind and wasn’t going to show up at all. Which would be a terrible thing to do since their meeting was her idea in the first place. 

“More tea while you wait, Lord Zuko?” 

“No, thank you.” He politely waved off the establishment’s owner who was checking on him for at least the third time since he’d arrived. 

The two guards he brought along with him were posted conspicuously outside the door, and he felt foolish. He hated the attention that it all drew and wished he could go anywhere and do anything without having so many eyes always watching him. _Well, you wanted to be Fire Lord_.

The taunting voice in his mind sounded like Azula. It always did. There were days that Zuko thought he could happily give up the throne and go live somewhere else, anywhere else, and have a normal life. Maybe Ba Sing Se with Uncle. He thought he could be content living a life of relative obscurity, working in a tea shop. If only he didn’t care about his nation and his people. And the rest of the world who had suffered because of them. No, what happened next rested on his shoulders. It was his duty and his burden to bear. 

Zuko was pulled out of his troubled thoughts by the guards standing up at attention a little straighter. Mai appeared in the doorway and almost entirely ignored the owner's attempt to guide her to Zuko’s table. It didn’t matter that the man had placed him in the most obscured spot in the place. Mai saw him.

She approached the table and slid into the seat across from him with that fluid, silent way that she had. That way that made her so deadly. She was dressed in her usual fashion, and she looked even prettier than he remembered. _It’s only been a handful of months, you dolt_. 

“Thanks for coming,” Zuko began, hoping his voice wouldn’t crack. 

Mai stared at him from under her dark fringe. “I invited you here.”

“Yeah, right,” Zuko nodded awkwardly. “So, uh…how are you?”

“Fine,” Mai replied flatly, neither her voice nor her expression betraying anything. “You?”

“I’ve been better, but I’m alright,” Zuko answered. 

They were interrupted then by the owner asking after their choices for their meals. Zuo politely listened to the man raving about their specialties and blathering on about how honored he was to have the Fire Lord as a guest of his establishment, but he wished Mai hadn’t insisted on meeting in a semi-public place. He understood why, of course, but that didn’t make it any better.

“So, um… how is...uh…” Zuko began once they had ordered and were left alone again.

“Kei Lo is fine,” Mai answered quickly.

“Are you sure this is okay?” Zuko asked. “He isn’t going to be upset?”

“He can be whatever he wants. I don’t ask permission to see my friends,” Mai retorted.

“Is that what we are?” Zuko inquired, raising a brow. “Friends? We haven’t even spoken to each other in months,” he pointed out.

“I would like to be,” Mai replied evenly. “And let’s be real. We’ve both been using Ty Lee as a go-between to keep up with each other.”

Zuko couldn’t argue that what she said was true. “I guess we have,” he admitted.

“It’s not fair to her, and really it’s just stupid,” Mai went on. “We should be able to be friends. We were friends before we were anything else,” she added.

Zuko nodded. He wasn’t sure that what they had been before they were together counted as friends, and he wasn’t certain that he was capable of being _just friends_ with her now, considering how he still felt about her. But he wanted to try.

“I would like that,” he asserted. 

“Good,” Mai replied, picking up the cup of tea in front of her taking a sip. “So, as a friend…tell me the truth. How are you really?”

He understood then. He hadn’t had a clue why Mai reached out to him out of nowhere and asked to see him. Ty Lee had been no help, insisting he needed to talk to her himself and find out. He imagined all kinds of possibilities and scenarios, each more complex than the last, but the truth was something more simple. She just cared about him. 

Zuko felt a warmth in his chest as he looked across the table at her, and he knew he could be honest with her. “I’m having a hard time,” he finally admitted. 

“I can imagine,” Mai replied. “How are things with your mom back home?”

“It’s strange,” Zuko said after he took a moment to think about it. “Obviously I’m thrilled that she’s okay and that she came back here with me, but it’s an adjustment too. So much has changed since she left. I was a little kid then, and now I’m-”

“The Fire Lord,” Mai finished his sentence for him. “You’re not a little kid anymore, and you’ve been through a lot.”

“Yeah, exactly,” Zuko nodded. “It’s like we have to get to know each other all over again. And now I have a step-father, I guess. And a little sister. I mean, _another_ little sister.”

“What’s that like?” Mai asked before sipping her tea again.

“Strange too,” he confessed. “I really like Ikem. He doesn’t try to act like some kind of father figure or anything. And he doesn’t treat me like I’m a kid. Which is nice. But it’s still just weird, I guess.”

“And Kiyi?” 

“She’s great,” Zuko smiled. “I mean, she’s just a baby. But she’s adorable, and everyone loves her.” 

“Ty Lee was telling me that,” Mai affirmed.

“It’s just… I don’t know. One day, it was just me, and my dad in prison, and Azula in an institution. And now I have a family, and my father is still in prison, and Azula is just…gone,” Zuko sighed. “And I still have to focus on my duties as Fire Lord first and foremost.”

“Sure, but you shouldn’t neglect yourself either,” Mai pointed out. “You’re not going to be a good Fire Lord or any good for your family if you do that.”

Zuko frowned. “What makes you think I’m neglecting myself?”

They paused for a moment as a server brought their food, but neither of them so much as picked up their utensils once the man left.

“You really want to know?” Mai asked with a lifted brow.

“Yes,” Zuko replied, though something about her tone made him think twice.

“I mean, I’ve talked to Ty Lee, Zuko. And I’ve seen the lengths you’re going to in order to find Azula,” Mai began slowly. “And I know you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Zuko questioned. “You think I shouldn’t be trying to find Azula?”

“I didn’t say that,” Mai replied. 

“It sounds like that’s what you’re saying,” Zuko said, growing agitated. “Look, I know you hate her, and _I get it_ , but-”

“This isn’t about me or my feelings,” Mai cut him off. “Seriously, it’s not. This is about you. And you did ask, so I’m going to tell you. I’m concerned that you’re using Azula to cope with…” she waved a hand in the air for a moment, “ _everything_.”

Zuko stared at her, furrowing his brow. 

“You’ve been through a lot in the last few years,” Mai reiterated, her expression and voice growing more animated as she leaned closer into the table. “We all have, but you’re going through a lot _now_ , plus you have the added responsibility of a whole country on you, and you’re not even eighteen. It’s kinda crazy. Ask yourself honestly. Are you actually dealing with everything that’s going on in here,” she tapped her chest for emphasis, “or are you so desperate to try and fix Azula because it’s easier than actually dealing with your own problems?”

“ _Easier_ ?” Zuko laughed incredulously. “You think dealing with Azula is _easier_? And she _is_ my problem. I tried to help her because _she’s my sister_ , and because it’s the right thing to do.”

“But you can’t fix her, Zuko,” Mai pressed, undaunted by his anger. “You could help her if she would let you, but you can’t change her.”

“You don’t understand,” Zuko shook his head, knowing his raised voice was drawing attention but too upset to care. “ _You don’t know what it was like._ ” 

“Maybe not,” Mai conceded. “But I do know you were going to speak to your dad in secret and then lying to me about it. And I understood the lying part, I did. But did you even stop to try and figure out _why_ you were doing that?”

“I was trying to find my mother!” Zuko shot back. He remembered one of their arguments before their break up, after Mai had pressed him on the issue of his visits to the prison. _After everything he’s done to you, why would you go back?_ He had no answer for her. He only knew that, once his uncle left for Ba Sing Se, he had felt alone despite his friends, and he was cracking under the pressure. Maybe he’d just been seeking the comfort of familiarity, as twisted and painful as that familiarity was.

“Is that _all_ it was? Really?” Mai furrowed her brow, then reached across the table and placed one hand on top of his. “I’m not trying to attack you, Zuko. I care about you. And I’m worried about you.”

“Maybe you should be more worried about yourself,” Zuko replied, pulling his hand away. “I know you’re unhappy at home. And I don’t know what’s wrong in your relationship that’s making you worry yourself about me needlessly, but I doubt everything is all sunshine and fire lilies since you reached out to me.”

Mai leaned back and sighed, but she didn’t react otherwise. It took Zuko off guard. The Mai he knew would have been angry, even if she only showed it by shutting down and walking away. She didn’t do either.

“Look, maybe this whole friendship thing isn’t going to work out like I thought,” Mai finally replied, evenly and calmly. “Or maybe it’s just going to take more work than I thought it would, I don’t know. But I’ve been doing a lot of…” she hesitated for a moment, then sighed as if it pained her to even use the term, “ _soul-searching_ lately, as Ty Lee would put it. It’s bringing up a lot of ugly shit that I would much rather pretend isn’t there. But nothing is ever going to get better if I just ignore it. Gods, I don’t know, maybe worrying about _you_ is just _me_ trying to avoid my own problems,” she added, and to his shock, she almost laughed at herself.

Zuko felt his anger melting away as he stared at Mai across the table. She had simultaneously disarmed him and disarmed herself, and he had to at least consider what she was trying to say to him, even if he ultimately disagreed. She was showing him a rare vulnerability, and he couldn’t help but to do the same. 

“I’m sorry,” he conceded in a lowered tone. “I know you’re trying to help. And you’re probably right to some extent,” he admitted. “I haven’t felt like myself lately. Or…maybe more like my _old_ self, and that’s not who I want to be anymore.”

Mai offered a half smile. “Unless you mean your _old old_ self, because I remember liking _that_ you quite a bit.”

Zuko laughed, but it was tinged with sadness. “No going back to those days. Much as I wish I could take that kid and tell him everything I know now. I would have made so many different choices.”

“Me too,” Mai nodded. “Though there’s no telling how much we could have actually changed even if we knew better in the past.”

“What would you have done differently?” Zuko asked, finally picking up his utensils and digging into the food in front of them.

“I would have found a healthier outlet for my boredom and told your sister to go jump in a volcanic crater when she showed up in Omashu, for starters,” Mai answered without hesitation.

“Somehow I don’t think you would have gotten away with that,” Zuko remarked wryly.

“Yeah, me neither.”

They both laughed, and Mai picked up her utensils but merely twirled them between her fingers for a moment before she spoke again.

“Honestly, Zuko. I don’t want you to think I’m saying any of the things I said because of how I feel about Azula. I swear it’s not that. And I do understand why you’re trying so hard to find her. I know you love her.”

Zuko nodded. “It’s not just you, you know. My uncle thinks the same. He said I’m ‘holding on too tightly’ or something. But then, he’s also told me before that sometimes the best way to deal with my problems is to help someone else! So, I don’t know what to think half the time.”

“Well, I’m not gonna try to decipher the conflicting wisdoms of Uncle Iroh,” Mai remarked dryly, offering Zuko a faint smile. “But I think if you take some time and just be honest with yourself, you’ll figure out what it is that you need to do. I have faith in you.”

“Thank you, Mai,” Zuko answered. “I appreciate you looking out for me, really.” _And your honesty, brutal as it is._ He wished he could share her confidence, but he felt as though he were stumbling through the darkness and that nothing he did would ever be the right thing for everyone. But maybe trying to do the right thing for everyone at all times was part of the problem. Maybe he _was_ ignoring himself to the detriment of everyone else around him after all. And maybe the answers he needed were not black and white but somewhere in between, suspended in some sort of balance between holding on and letting go.

  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  


“You want me to do what, now?” Azula squinted at Iriya in the mid-morning sunlight, lifting a hand to shade her eyes as she stared down at the older woman.

“Light the field on fire,” Iriya repeated. “And make sure to spread the flames _toward_ me, but don’t let them travel past you.”

They were standing on the edge of several acres of shrubbery-laden grassland in the foothills, not far from Iriya’s home. Iriya had asked for her help with a _project_ , as she called it, that morning, and having no good excuse to say no, Azula agreed. She’d been promised it involved fire, but she had not expected what Iriya was asking of her.

“Dare I ask _why_ you want me to start a fire?” Azula asked with a raised brow. 

“Technically I’m starting the fire, and you’re finishing it,” Iriya corrected. “I do this in different places around here as needed, and this bit of land is in need.”

“It needs a fire,” Azula repeated skeptically, eyeing the dry land. “That seems like a bad idea. There hasn’t been any rain for a while.”

“That’s partially why we need to do it,” Iriya confirmed. “Fire is a completely natural part of life. But we don’t want a wildfire that could cause needless damage,” she explained. “So, we create our own fire, control it, burn out everything that is dry and dead, and make way for new things to grow instead.”

When Azula continued to stare at her dubiously, Iriya placed her hands on her hips. “People have been doing this for thousands of years if not longer, Azula. And not just firebenders either, though I suppose it’s much easier for us than it is for those who don’t have our natural talents. I can do it myself if you don’t want to help, but I’m getting old, and it’s not so easy for me to control such a large area. I’m not as spry as I used to be, and sometimes the fire moves quickly so you must as well.”

“No, I’ll do it,” Azula replied. “I’m just… surprised. We never learned anything like this in school.”

“I don’t imagine you would,” Iriya remarked. “At least not in the capital. I don’t think things like managing the land are held in very high esteem there. But out here, children do learn such things. Though I’m sad to say even here their education became increasingly more in line with the capital’s emphasis on militancy and industrial advancement over the years.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” Azula retorted, half offended by Iriya’s apparent derision for the capital’s way of life, and half intrigued. 

“It is,” Iriya asserted. “In my estimation, anyway. But suppose we get to work now and we can debate the merits of our nation’s educational system later?”

“You’re really going to try to convince me that some backwater village schoolhouse offers a better education than the best schools in the capital, aren’t you,” Azula mused incredulously. 

“Perhaps,” Iriya admitted with a lopsided grin. “But first we’ll need to establish a common idea of what a good education is, and I fear we may run into some differences of opinion there,” she laughed. “Now enough stalling. I’ll go get into position. Wait for my signal.”

Azula watched as Iriya made her way down the slope toward the lower end of the sizable field, realizing she was actually looking forward to another of their lively debates around their little table. Several days prior, Iriya had tried to convince her that plants were sentient beings, an idea she would have once roundly mocked. She found herself unable to deride the idea, however, no matter how ridiculous it still seemed. She couldn’t forget the things she’d seen in the forest of the Forgetful Valley and had eventually been coaxed into sharing her experiences with the Mother of Faces in detail. Iriya was fascinated and full of questions, and Azula eventually admitted that she did believe the forest was _alive_ in a way that none of their scientific texts could explain, and not simply because it was a spiritual place.

“Maybe it’s not that they _can’t_ explain it,” Iriya had suggested. “Maybe they’re simply not interested in trying to. Maybe they're asking the wrong questions and seeking the wrong answers.”

She was a strange woman, full of strange ideas, but Azula found herself growing fond of her despite her best efforts to remain indifferent. She knew better than to let her guard down, but she caught herself failing in that regard anyway. The worst part was that the more she allowed herself to slip, the less she seemed to care. It was disconcerting.

Finally at the other end of the vast field, Iriya lifted her arms over her head and waved. When she lowered them, a wall of flames spread out before her. Gray plumes lifted into the air as the field burned, and Iriya moved in a slow and methodical path down the edge of it, helping the fire to spread. It moved faster than Azula expected, the dryness of the field and the slight wind feeding and carrying the flames. She watched as the fire crept steadily toward her, and when it reached roughly the halfway mark across the field, Iriya waved her arms again.

Azula took her cue and sent a sweeping wall of blue flames from her palms. The field before her caught quickly, and she bent the flames away from her, pushing them ever forward to meet the advancing fire Iriya had started. When she was surrounded by scorched earth and confident that the fire was advancing only forward, she moved down the line of the field as she had watched Iriya do, leaving smoldering earth in her wake. It was quick work, as the flames she ignited traveled quickly and met Iriya’s flames in the middle, and they burned together until there was nothing left to feed on. 

Then the wind picked up, pushing the flames in the wrong direction. Iriya shouted to alert Azula to the fire leaping past the end of the line behind her. She quickly pivoted, taking a moment to assess the situation. The flames roared higher than they should have been as dry shrubbery was set alight, and Azula deemed it a waste of time to bend the flames away when she could simply counter it with a blast of her own. She backed up and inhaled deeply, holding her form for a moment before leaping and sending a wall of blue flame roaring toward the blaze. She landed with a soft thud just as her flames crashed into the smoldering inferno, and as the brilliant colors mingled, she found herself transfixed. 

Suddenly, she was not in the middle of a field any longer, but in the middle of a courtyard, outside the palace. Blue flames exploded and clashed with orange and dissipated just as quickly. She was panting and angry and confused. Everything was _wrong_. She should have been winning. It should have been easy.

_No lightning today? What’s the matter, afraid I’ll redirect it?_

Her name echoed somewhere in her mind. Someone was shouting for her. But she couldn’t see who. All she could see was her brother, outlined in darkness, challenging her, waiting. 

A wild fury burned through her, but she couldn’t move. Her limbs were numb, and her body would not cooperate. She could not attack. She heard her name again, louder this time, and her lungs began to burn. She couldn’t breathe. She was trapped in water. Her arms were chained. 

Panic gripped her, and she dug her fingertips into the ashen earth, trying to find purchase in something real.

“ _Azula!_ ”

It was Iriya’s voice shouting at her. She blinked rapidly, the haze of darkness tunneling her vision shifting. She breathed in, and she realized she wasn’t suffocating in water at all. She was inhaling smoke.

Azula forced herself to her feet, coughing violently, and bent the rising flames away, her hands trembling and arms feeling like they were made of lead. She worked until the flames died down to crackling embers in the blackened brush then collapsed back onto the ground, slinging her arm across her mouth as she wheezed and spluttered from the lingering effects of the smoke.

Iriya was running to her as fast as her legs would carry her, and she dropped down beside Azula the moment she reached her, grabbing her by the shoulders.

“Are you alright?!”

“I’m _fine_ ,” Azula choked out, coughing from the effort. 

“What happened?” Iriya demanded, concern etched into her wrinkled face as she looked Azula over with a critical eye.

Azula wiped her sooty palms on her tunic then rubbed her burning eyes with the backs of her hands. “I just lost control for a second,” she croaked. “ _I'm fine_ ,” she reiterated, trying to pull away from Iriya’s hold on her. She didn’t know how to explain the unreasonable panic that had taken hold of her without warning, freezing her in place like a stupid, frightened animal while flames leapt dangerously close. She had no desire to try either.

Iriya pressed her lips together, but she didn’t push the point further. She quickly uncapped the small canteen she carried at her side and pushed it toward Azula. “Here, drink,” she commanded gently. “I’m sorry,” she added, sitting back as Azula took a long draught from the canteen. “Maybe I shouldn’t have asked you to do this with me today.” 

“ _No,_ ” Azula rasped, swift anger rising as she pushed to her feet. “Don’t do that. _Don’t treat me like that_ !” she shouted, blinking back tears of frustration. She thought of everyone who had looked at her like she was some sort of pitiable, broken thing since the day her life had unraveled, and her hands balled into fists at her side. “ _I can handle this_.”

Iriya rose slowly to her feet as well, and she considered Azula for a moment before she nodded. “You’re right. You can, and I apologize for the implication that you couldn’t, though it was not my intent. Tomorrow you can help me with another few acres that are in need, but for now all we can do is make sure everything here dies down safely. Then I want to show you something.”

  
  


* * *

  
  


_Want to see how Azula feeds the turtle ducks?_

Lost in her memories for a moment, Ursa smiled sadly as she ripped a small hunk of bread into even smaller pieces and dropped one of the tiny pieces into Kiyi’s waiting hand. Her little fist wasn’t as chubby as it used to be, she noted. 

“Like this, sweetheart,” Ursa urged as she gently tossed a few pieces of bread into the pond in the royal gardens. 

Kiyi tossed her piece of bread into the air, and it never made it into the pond. She giggled as one of the ducklings hopped onto the bank around the pond and pecked up the stray piece of bread before waddling back in and rejoining its family. 

“That’s a funny little turtle duckling, isn’t it?” she cooed, and Kiyi squealed. Then she tried to join the turtle ducks in the pond.

“No, Kiyi!” Ursa gasped, scooping her little girl up and tickling her. “Ponds are for turtle ducklings, not for children!”

Kiyi shrieked and kicked her feet, and when Ursa finally put her down, she plopped into the grass just at the edge of the pond and sat kicking her feet, but she didn’t try to climb in again. Ursa couldn’t help but to think of Zuko and Azula at Kiyi’s age. Zuko would never have tried to climb into the pond at all, and Azula… well, Azula would have been head-first into the water before she could so much as blink. Her fearlessness and defiance had been apparent from the moment she learned how to crawl. Maybe even earlier. 

It was strange to be back on the palace grounds again after so long. The landscape hadn’t changed, nor the palace itself, and she’d found many familiar and friendly faces within the vast royal halls. Yet everything was different. If she were going to live in the capital once again, there were still political games she would have to play for Zuko’s sake, that much was apparent already. But in their home, at least, she could live freely, no longer needing to second-guess her every word and deed. It was liberating, yet their home was not whole.

“Mama! Duckie!” Kiyi demanded more bread, making a grabbing motion with her fists.

“Here,” she placated the child with the last bread crumbs and smiled as she watched her scatter them over the water. She was grateful when Kiyi decided to toddle over and flop down into her lap rather than take off down the garden pathways or try to jump in the water again. Kiyi yawned, and Ursa had to stifle the urge to do the same. She hadn’t slept well all week. 

Part of her regretted going to the prison the previous week. Zuko had been skeptical of the idea. It seemed the conversation she had overheard between him and Aang when they were still back in Hira’a had affected him. He was worried about the wisdom of allowing Ozai to know his plan had failed. Ursa quickly relented her desire for the confrontation she sought, but Zuko came back to her later with a changed mind, reasoning that Ozai would determine the truth eventually anyway when Azula didn’t return for him. 

All of their worrying proved pointless on the morning they had visited the prison together. Ozai didn’t seem surprised to see her in the slightest. He hardly even acknowledged her, in fact. While Ursa knew him to be adept at concealing his thoughts and feelings when he wanted to, she couldn’t shake the sense that he already knew everything. He hadn’t even asked after Azula -not that she would have expected him to care- and it convinced her that he knew their daughter was gone. Later, mulling it over with Zuko, they determined the most likely course of events was that idle chatter amongst the prison guards had made its way to Ozai before her visit. Zuko did not want to become paranoid, nor did she want that for him. Still, the whole affair was disturbing. 

It was also deeply unsatisfactory. She didn’t know what she had expected. A feeling of closure? A sense of justice? She got neither, only a fleeting gratification upon first seeing her former husband in such a dismal state. He deserved his fate, she knew that, and the baser part of her nature was satisfied to see him suffer. In her mind’s eye, she saw her son’s face. She felt the ghost of her daughter in her arms, broken and weeping. For the space of a breath, Ursa thought she could have driven a knife into Ozai’s heart and gloried in the bloodshed. But after, in the dark and quiet of her room, she felt only an empty ache. Hurting Ozai would not heal all of the wounds he had inflicted. It wouldn’t erase her painful memories or remove the scars from Zuko’s face and heart. It wouldn’t restore Azula’s stolen childhood or bring her back home. 

Soft footsteps coming down the path pulled Ursa from the darkness of her thoughts. She glanced down toward her lap and realized that Kiyi had fallen asleep. Sifting her fingertips through her little girl’s dark hair, she hoped whoever was approaching would not wake her.

“Oh!” Ty Lee seemed startled when she came upon Ursa’s spot near the pond. “ _Sorry_ ,” she whispered when she realized Kiyi was sleeping. She held up one gloved hand apologetically, the other occupied with a book and a letter. “I didn’t know anyone was here. I’ll just-”

“No, it’s alright,” Ursa interjected quietly. “I would vacate the best spot in the garden for you, but…” she smiled down at Kiyi softly snoring with her head in her lap before returning her gaze back to Ty Lee. “Would you like to join us?”

Ty Lee glanced around uncertainly, her large eyes exaggerated by the Kyoshi makeup she wore, then she returned Ursa’s smile and nodded. She situated herself beneath the tree a short space away from them, her feet tucked under the long skirt of her uniform. 

“Reading something interesting?” Ursa asked, nodding toward the book Ty Lee had placed in her lap.

“Oh, no. Well, not yet. I just received this today from a friend in Ba Sing Se,” Ty Lee replied. “I haven’t had time to start it.”

“Too busy looking after the Fire Lord,” Ursa commented with a smile. “I know Zuko can take care of himself, but I can’t tell you how grateful I am that he has loyal friends to help guard him as well.”

“Are you worried for his safety?” Ty Lee asked.

“I can’t help but to be, much as I would like to believe that everything is alright. It comes with the territory of being a mother,” Ursa replied. “Though I suppose one needn’t be a mother to see the inherent danger in being such a young leader trying to make changes in a place like this.”

Ty Lee nodded. “I know what you mean. That’s why I wanted to stay on here. Protecting Zuko feels like being part of that change, I guess.”

“You children -pardon me, young people- give me hope for the future,” Ursa remarked, glancing down at Kiyi as she spoke. “I know it won’t be easy by any means, and I only wish that those of us who are older had done half as much to change things as you all have.”

“Well, I don’t think I should be counted in that,” Ty Lee replied with a grimace. “I haven’t done anything of value, not like Zuko and Aang and Suki and the rest of them. If anything, I’ve done more bad than good.”

Ursa frowned. It pained her to see someone so young clearly hurting over things which were beyond her control, but she understood. In the halls of the royal palace, she herself had once morphed into someone she didn’t recognize. Someone she was not raised to be, not meant to be. Someone tainted by fear and power and privilege and coercion. Someone who could socialize with the most cruel and callous people and convince herself she was one of them, all for her own security and comfort. Someone she imagined her parents would have been ashamed of.

“I know you saved at least one precious life, Ty Lee,” Ursa answered gently, trying to find something to lift the girl’s spirits. “And if you’ll permit me to say so…I think you saved Azula too.”

Ty Lee furrowed her brows. “How is that?” she asked, appearing to genuinely not understand.

“Azula loved the two of you,” Ursa asserted. “Gods forbid she had hurt Mai… I think it would have destroyed her eventually.” When Ty Lee opened her mouth as if to protest, she held up a hand. “If you don’t believe that, I understand. I know she didn’t treat either of you well, and at the end…well,” she sighed, trying to find a way to explain. “I remember when she first began attending the Academy. She came home every day with never a word to say about anything other than what she learned, or how much time she managed to spend practicing her firebending. Her father was pleased, but I was worried. I wanted her to make friends her own age, and it didn’t seem like that was happening. She was completely disinterested beyond getting into altercations with people who displeased her. And then one day, just like that, she came home talking about her friends Ty Lee and Mai, Mai and Ty Lee. You girls were all she talked about for the longest time.” 

Ursa paused and watched Ty Lee absently pick at the corners of her book, her gaze resting in her lap. 

“I’m sure it’s hard for you to believe, and you don’t have to accept my word for it, but I _know_ she cared for you both. I know she did,” Ursa went on, fighting against the tremor in her voice. “I can’t make excuses for her, but her father encouraged the worst in her, and I couldn’t protect her from him.”

“Funny you say that,” Ty Lee replied, finally lifting her gaze again. “I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what kind of person I’ve been most of my life. And I felt like Azula encouraged the worst things about me, too. But I can’t blame her for everything. I can be angry at her for dragging me into the war and for treating me the way she did and going after Mai and throwing us in prison and all of that, but she never forced me to be the way that I was when I was with her. That was just me being…weak. A follower, I guess. Looking for attention and approval.” 

Ursa nodded sympathetically. “I understand, more than you know.”

“I keep thinking about the last thing I said to her, too,” Ty Lee kept on, as if the floodgates had suddenly been opened. “Well, not the very last thing, but the last, or I guess _the only_ time that we really talked. She hurt my feelings, and I lashed out at her. I told her she didn’t know me and that we had never really been friends. I felt like… it felt true at the time, and I think I _needed_ to say it, you know? But it wasn’t entirely true, actually. Because the truth is, we _were_ friends. Even if it was really messed up most of the time. She could be so cruel, but then...she always had my back. I never needed to worry about anything else, because I knew she would never let anyone hurt me and get away with it. She was the only one I ever needed to worry about hurting me. I don’t know if that even makes sense,” she added with a sigh. “I guess I just feel bad now that I said those things because…she’s go-...disappeared. And then I get angry that I feel bad about it, because I shouldn’t. I’m sorry.” Ty Lee lifted a hand as if to pinch the bridge of her nose, then remembered her face paint and flexed her hand before dropping it into her lap again. “I’m sure the last thing you need is to hear all of my…whatever.”

“No, on the contrary.” Ursa stopped stroking Kiyi’s hair for a moment and carefully reached over to lay an encouraging hand on Ty Lee’s arm. “There aren’t many people around here who both know my daughter well and…don’t despise her.” She offered a regretful smile. “In fact I don’t know of anyone besides you and Zuko, and he already has so much to concern himself with. It’s nice to be able to talk with someone who understands.”

Ty Lee smiled then, barely, just the ghost of one tugging at the corners of her lips, but she seemed relieved. “I agree,” she replied. 

“Well then.” Ursa resumed her soothing strokes against Kiyi’s temple as the child began to stir. “Anytime you would like to talk, Ty Lee. You are always welcome here.”

  
  
  


* * *

“We walked all this way here for _this_?” 

Azula stood at the edge of a meadow with Iriya, a few miles’ walk from the field they had burned hours earlier. It was a pretty enough place, long grasses mingled with a variety of wildflowers and weeds spreading over gently rolling hills. Iriya’s purpose in bringing her there was not apparent, no matter how lovely her little meadow might be. Perhaps she simply thought the scenery would be calming. Iriya walked over to a low, flat boulder and sat, wincing and complaining about her aching joints as she did so. 

“You missed the fire lilies,” Iriya observed. “But they’ll be back next summer. They get more beautiful each year. Maybe you can help me with the harvesting.”

Azula quirked a brow. “What makes you so sure I’ll be here next summer?” 

“I suppose I don’t have any such assurance, but I hope you will be,” Iriya replied with a shrug. “I don’t have any assurance that the lilies will come back year after year either, but they always do. I’ve found that if you take care of the land, it will take care of you right back.”

Azula crossed her arms over her chest. She was tired, her head ached, and her chest still hurt from the lingering effects of the smoke. She didn’t understand what Iriya was trying to say, and it annoyed her. “This is just some meadow,” she remarked crossly.

“Is it?” Iriya asked. “This place once looked exactly like that field we just burned. It was dead.”

“So?” Azula retorted.

“So I conducted a burn, oh, a number of years ago, now,” Iriya answered. “And now look.” She lifted her arm and swept it in a wide circle. “Life all around you. Every blade of grass, every little flower, all of the insects that feed on them and the small creatures that feed on the insects and the larger creatures that feed on them… they’re all here because I lit a fire. Burned away the old to make way for something new.”

“You’re taking credit for all of this?” Azula asked, incredulous.

“Of course not,” Iriya shook her head. “You know, sometimes I think you make a sport of purposely missing the point, just to vex me,” she added. The twinkle in her eye and faint curve of her lips stopped Azula from taking offense. “No, I’m not _taking credit_ for it, Azula. I’m simply another piece of the puzzle, another creature using my gifts to fulfill my place in the world.”

When Azula merely frowned at her, Iriya smiled. “Fire is destruction, but it is so much more than that. It’s a warm hearth and a hot meal and light to guide your way. It’s the power of life and renewal.”

“Why don’t you just _tell me_ what the point is instead of circling around it like this,” Azula sighed, moving to sit beside Iriya on the rock.

“The point is that you’ve been given many gifts, Azula,” Iriya answered. “Fire is just one of them.”

“I used to think it was a gift,” Azula replied, bitterness creeping into her voice as she picked a small wildflower and began absently plucking off its petals. “I was _gifted._ Special. But what good did it do me in the end?”

“ _In the end_?” Iriya repeated, as if shocked by the statement. “What _end_? You have your whole life ahead of you.”

“My life was effectively over the day I lost the Agni Kai to my brother,” Azula shot back. “You don’t understand,” she argued when she saw the look on Iriya’s face. “The throne was _my destiny_. I spent my entire life preparing for it, trying to make myself worthy of it. And I failed.”

“Your destiny?” Iriya questioned. “Who told you that?”

Azula frowned.

“Maybe it’s not my place to say so,” Iriya went on gently, “but you’re the second child of a second child, gifted though you are. Was there _really_ a destiny there? I can’t help but wonder what your life might have been like if not for your father’s ambition.” 

Iriya’s statement should have angered her, but all Azula felt was defeat. “You don’t have to wonder,” she muttered. “I can tell you.”

Azula took a moment to ensure control of her voice, then she told Iriya about the good things that once were. About her happiest memories that were now laced with pain. About chasing Zuko through the palace gardens and attending plays with him and their mother and playing seemingly endless games of hide-and-seek in the secret passageways of the palace with Ty Lee and Mai. About Ember Island. She spoke of her last night there, of Ty Lee’s dreams of a shared freedom to go anywhere in the world and do anything they wanted, and she confessed that some part of her wished they had run away that night and never looked back.

“Why didn’t you?” Iriya asked when she finished.

“Because…” Azula paused as her voice cracked, and she found that it was hard to even remember why she hadn't. “Because it would have been… weak. Selfish. I had a duty to this country. To my father,” she added with a grimace. “I was _born to rule_.” To voice such an idea felt so strange and hollow now, sitting at what felt like the edge of the world, in a meadow in the middle of nowhere with nothing but an old woman and buzzing bees and wildflowers. “At least, that’s what my father said. My _great purpose_ in life,” Azula added with a bitter laugh.

“Ah. Does life require some great, glorious purpose?” Iriya mused after a moment of silence. “Isn’t it enough to live well. To give and receive love. Maybe to find some meaningful work and leave the world a little better behind us?”

“It’s too late for me to have any of those things if I even wanted them, let alone a great purpose,” Azula scoffed. She meant to sound careless and detached, but she realized she only sounded pathetically sad, even to her own ears.

“I think you should consider whose stories you believe about yourself and why, Azula,” Iriya prompted. “You’ve been burdened with difficulties to overcome, certainly, but as I said, you’ve also been given a great many gifts. You have youth and strength, beauty and intelligence. You’re the most powerful firebender I’ve ever had the privilege of meeting. You were born into wealth and power, even if that position has turned out to be detrimental to you. It could still be turned into something good.”

“It can’t,” Azula argued. “I’ve lost my family and my position, and there’s no going back. I can’t even trust my own mind anymore,” she added dolefully. 

Iriya reached down and plucked one of the little white flowers growing around their feet and tucked it behind Azula’s ear. “Where there’s life, there is still a chance. This meadow was once a burning ruin. Some might have looked on it and seen merely the destruction, but it only needed a second chance. And a little time to heal.”


	15. Chapter 15

Azula stood in the middle of a patch of dirt, fists on her hips, staring down Iriya’s old mule. The beast was properly hitched to its plow, which had taken a few tries even with Iriya’s patient guidance, but she had gotten it eventually. It had no excuse not to move.

“ _Iriya_!” Azula shouted impatiently for the third time. She was two seconds away from giving the infuriating creature a _reason_ to move. 

Iriya finally stepped out of the house into the autumn sun, wiping melon juice from her hands. “What’s wrong?” she called. 

Azula gestured emphatically to the mule standing in the dirt refusing to pull the plow. They had spent the entire previous day harvesting the last of Iriya’s crops, a sizable patch of melons and beans and leeks all curiously grown together. Azula had reluctantly agreed to take on the job of plowing the emptied soil, which she’d allowed herself to be guilted into after adamantly refusing the idea of helping with the fertilization process. She wouldn’t be caught dead shoveling manure. 

“Oh, he’s a stubborn one,” Iriya laughed. “Just needs a little coaxing. I thought the two of you would get on like peas in a pod!” 

Azula scowled. “Do you want me to do this or not?” she demanded.

Iriya slung the soiled cloth in her hands over her shoulder and made her way down to her field. She picked her way over the withering remains of her little harvest in the dirt, and Azula moved aside as she stepped up to the animal. 

“You get behind the plow and be ready to guide it as soon as he starts pulling,” Iriya instructed. She scratched the beast under the chin and cooed at him foolishly, and the mule rewarded her with an irritating whinny in response.

Azula muttered under her breath as she took her place behind the plow, hating the way the rough wood of the tool scratched under her grip. She was going to end up with the calloused hands of a commoner before long. She already had dirt under her fingernails from the previous day’s work that she hadn’t been able to scrub out, and her muscles were sore from the labor. She grimaced as she imagined what _anyone_ who had known her before would think of her now.

It took several minutes, but eventually Iriya managed to cajole the beast into moving, and once it began it knew its route, requiring little guidance from the reins. 

“There you go,” Iriya beamed, stepping back and placing her hands on her hips as she watched them pass by. “See, that wasn’t so hard, was it?”

“If you think I’m _ever_ going to do that…think again,” Azula called over her shoulder as she leaned down and put her back into the work.

“Oh, I don’t know. I’ll bet you could be a real charmer too, if you wanted,” Iriya teased. “Just takes some practice.”

“Please go away and let me work in peace,” Azula griped, and Iriya relented, raising her hands in mock surrender as she walked back to the house.

Left alone with her thoughts and the tedious work of pushing the plow along the rows of soil, following the slow pace of the belligerent mule, Azula’s mind wandered back to the conversation that was had over that morning’s breakfast. They had recently rearranged the interior of Iriya’s home to provide a separate space for Azula and her meager belongings. Iriya felt that if she was going to stay for a while, she deserved to have the closest approximation of her own room that they could create out of the small living area. So they moved furniture and strung a rope through the rafters, and Iriya joked as they hung a delicate curtain that pulling the material closed wasn’t going to have the same effect or be nearly as satisfactory for Azula as slamming a door in her face when she was angry would be. 

This change prompted Azula to consider the state of Iriya’s existence before her arrival, and over their morning meal she had asked Iriya whether she really enjoyed her prior state of solitude. She answered with what seemed like complete honesty, confessing that she had been lonely almost as often as she was blissfully satisfied in her way of life. She returned, however, to her insistence that she was not really alone even when she was. That the world around her provided love and companionship, albeit in a different way from the company of other people. 

Azula found it ridiculous to imagine the world as a loving place the way Iriya did. The world as she knew it was brutal and unfeeling, and only the most worthy survived. This was a truth, her truth, _the_ truth, whether the subject was the natural world or the society superimposed on it. She said as much to Iriya. _We are among the most powerful beings_ , she’d said. _Therefore, we have a right to conquer. And the strongest among us have the right to rule._

_What if, rather than a right to conquer and rule, we have a responsibility to caretake? We are a part of this world as much as any creature or spirit or growing thing, all of us equals. All of us needed._

Sometimes Iriya’s ideas made her angry, though she wasn’t entirely certain why. It was more than the fact that she was _wrong_ and foolish. Perhaps it was just the way she expressed herself with absolute conviction yet a complete lack of judgment for Azula not seeing things her way. Maybe it was the way her kindness was as genuine as her inherent strength. Iriya seemed made of steel, yet she was as soft as a gentle autumn breeze. It went against everything Azula had ever known to be true and made it ever more apparent with each passing day that all of her truths were crumbling around her like a palace made of sand. 

* * *

“Are you sure it’s okay for us to be in here?”

“Get a grip, Ty Lee,” Azula scoffed, yanking open the lid of a trunk in what was once her mother’s room and digging through the contents. “Don’t be such a baby. It’s not like my mom is ever coming back anyway.”

Mai leaned against the door frame, idly twirling a blade between her fingertips. “How do you know that?” she asked.

Azula shrugged as she continued rifling through the trunk. “She’s probably dead.” 

Ty Lee gasped. “You shouldn’t say that!”

“Why not?” Azula challenged. “It’s true.”

“But it just has such a negative-”

“I swear if you say the word ‘energy’ I’m gonna- oh! Here it is!” Azula pulled out a small painted box and carried it over to the table, setting it down and flipping the top open. She carefully took out the small pots and delicate brushes inside, setting them out in a display. 

The sight clearly overwhelmed whatever misgivings Ty Lee had. She twirled over to the table and started examining the contents of the box, gushing over all of the pretty colors of paints and powders she found. Azula stood back and watched her, a faint smile touching her lips. 

“This is so dumb,” Mai complained. “Why do you want to wear makeup anyway? It’s such a waste of time.”

“Because!” Ty Lee chirped. “Ayura wears makeup already.” 

Azula rolled her eyes, but she found Ty Lee’s rivalry with their schoolmate entertaining. Once she developed some semblance of a spine, Ty Lee made a point to always stay a step above the girl who had shoved her on her first day of school all those years ago. It was a silly competition, in Azula’s estimation, as Ty Lee was clearly superior in every way already, but it was still fun to encourage her enforcement of the natural hierarchy at the Royal Fire Academy for Girls. Ayura being the first and only girl in the school to show up wearing makeup could not stand. Ty Lee insisted that she would start wearing makeup as well, and that she would wear it better. Unfortunately, when she asked for it, Ty Lee’s mother refused, and she subsequently spent the first twenty minutes of their time together that afternoon complaining about it. Azula first suggested simply chi blocking Ayura into the mud to take her down a notch, but then she remembered the box of her mother’s makeup she’d once found locked away in her old room. She was never going to need it again, so Azula couldn’t think of a reason not to give it to Ty Lee. 

“I don’t get why you care what Ayura does. And what are you going to do when your mom catches you wearing makeup after she told you you’re too young for it?” Mai asked with a quirked brow.

“It’s not like she’s actually going to notice if I’m wearing it,” Ty Lee replied, and Azula didn’t miss the way her expression changed. “She just said no because she didn’t want to spend the money on it for me.”

Mai shrugged. “I still think it’s dumb, but whatever.”

“Are you sure you aren’t going to want this stuff for yourself, Azula?” Ty Lee asked. “I feel kinda weird taking your mom’s things…”

Azula waved off her concern. “If I wanted to wear makeup I would get my own, brand new, not that old stuff. And you’re not _taking_ it, I’m giving it to you.”

Seemingly satisfied that she wasn’t committing some horrible offense, Ty Lee perked up again. “Well, I think it’s really nice! Thank you, Azula.”

She should have expected it, but Ty Lee managed to ambush her with a hug. Her arms crossed over her chest blocked most of Ty Lee’s clinging, but Azula still basked in her friend’s appropriate display of gratitude. Before she could reply, they were interrupted by a knock on the door. A servant pushed the door open after Azula bid them enter.

“What do you want?” Azula demanded, shrugging Ty Lee off, annoyed at the intrusion. 

“I beg your pardon, Princess, but the Fire Lord wishes to see you at once,” the servant replied with a bow.

Ty Lee’s eyes widened. “Oh no. I knew we were going to get into trouble for-”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Azula interjected as she waved the servant off. “We’re not in trouble for anything. My father doesn’t have time to care about stupid things like this. I’ll be back soon. Both of you stay here,” she commanded as she strode toward the door.

When she reached the hall, the servant told her that her father was waiting for her in his study. Azula quickly made her way there, adjusting her collar and smoothing her uniform and her hair before she knocked on the door. When her father’s voice bid her enter, she stepped inside, shut the door behind her, and promptly bowed. 

“Father.”

Ozai ignored her presence for a few moments, bent over the table as he wrote on a parchment. Azula found it irritating that she would be summoned then made to wait, but she forced patience. He continued scribbling for a short while longer, then lifted his head and smiled at her. 

“Come here, Azula,” Ozai finally spoke, lifting a hand and beckoning her closer. 

Azula stepped up to the front of his table and clasped her hands behind her back, trying to keep herself from shifting around impatiently. She wished he would just tell her what she had been summoned for so she could get back to her friends. 

“How are you this evening, my dear?” her father asked as he set his writing aside.

She hesitated for a moment. “Well, thank you, Father,” she replied carefully. 

Ozai nodded. “You’re not feeling ill then?” he asked. Rising to his feet, he pushed his chair back and stepped out from behind the table. 

“No?” Azula answered, confused by the question. There was no reason he should think she might have been ill.

“I see,” Ozai responded, pacing behind her. “That being the case, would you care to explain to me why I received a displeasing report from your master this afternoon?”

Azula frowned and her pulse picked up as she tried to imagine what her firebending master could have possibly said that would have displeased her father. Her bending was better than ever, and getting better all the time.

“I don’t understand,” Azula began, glancing over her shoulder uneasily. “Why would Master-”

“Master Sejain tells me he feels you have become distracted lately,” Ozai interjected. “Your dedication to your training has been lacking.”

“He’s a liar!” Azula replied quickly. I _am not_ distracted.”

“Is that so? He also expressed, to my complete shock, that in his estimation Prince Zuko has shown more commitment than you of late,” her father remarked, stepping up beside her and settling his scrutinizing gaze on her face. “Is that possible, Azula?”

“ _It’s not_ ,” Azula retorted, anger laced with a sense of panic welling up in her. “I train for hours after every-”

“Today?” Ozai cut her off, brow furrowed. “Tell me, how many hours did you train today?”

Azula hesitated. “Well, only one, but I’ve done _nothing_ except train after school every other day this week!” she protested. 

“And why did you cut your training short today, hm? Too busy playing with your little friends to dedicate yourself?”

Azula frowned. “It was just one afternoon, Father, and I-”

Ozai slammed his fist on the table, and she jumped. Cowed into silence, she bit her tongue. 

“ _Enough_ ,” Ozai thundered, his mood shifting in the blink of an eye. “You are too old for this childish nonsense. I’ve indulged you on the basis of your natural skills and your previous commitment, but if you are growing lax and are incapable of regulating yourself, then I will have to do it for you. _Are you_ incapable of that, Azula?”

She ducked her head, shame filling her. “No, Father.”

Ozai took her by the chin and forced her head up. She had no choice but to look him in the eyes, and she did her best to do so bravely. To do otherwise would be deemed a weakness. 

“I’m glad to hear it,” her father replied, his voice calm again. “I suggest that you alter your course immediately. The next time I receive a disappointing report, there will be consequences.” 

Feeling as though she could hardly breathe or else she might cry, Azula forced a nod as best she could within his grip and uttered her understanding. When Ozai released her, she bowed and mumbled out a gesture of respect before backing out of the study. Once the door was closed behind her, it was all she could do not to send her foot flying into it. Instead, she stormed back to her mother’s room where her friends were waiting.

“ _Out_ ,” she commanded as she opened the door. Ty Lee and Mai blinked at her in surprise. 

“What?” Ty Lee asked, clearly confused.

“You’re going home. Get your things and go,” Azula demanded.

“Did your dad say we have to leave? I thought you wanted us to stay over for-”

“No, _I’m_ saying it! You’re leaving. Don’t argue with me,” Azula cut Mai off, stomping into the room. She grabbed all of the little pots and brushes still set out on the table and dumped them haphazardly back into the box they came from, then shoved the box into Ty Lee’s arms. She put a hand on her friend’s back and propelled her toward the door.

“Okay, okay! Relax, Azula, we’ll go!” Ty Lee protested, clutching the box tightly to her chest.

“I’ll get our bags,” Mai said. The glance she exchanged with Ty Lee as they made their way out the door of Ursa’s room didn’t escape Azula’s notice, and it made her even angrier. 

Azula snapped her fingers at the nearest guards she found in the halls as she followed her friends down toward the entrance of the palace. “You two, get over here. You’re walking them home,” she commanded. 

“Oh, that’s not really necessary,” Ty Lee piped up, glancing hesitantly over at Azula. “Or at least, just one is fine. I’m just going to stay at Mai’s tonight then, my parents won’t care.”

“Whatever,” Azula snapped, further piqued by the thought of Ty Lee and Mai spending their evening together the way the three of them had meant to. Just without her. 

Near the front doors of the palace, Azula spotted Zuko walking down the hall toward them, dressed in his armor for some unfathomable reason. White-hot rage poured through her at the sight of him. How could Father have praised him to her face while reproaching her when she was _still_ better than him in every possible way and always would be, no matter how many hours of training she might skip. It was unfair. It was _wrong_.

Just before he passed them, Zuko said hello in response to Ty Lee and awkwardly returned Mai’s shy wave. On impulse, Azula stuck her foot out and tripped him.

“Hey!” Zuko shouted as he just barely caught himself with his hands out on the ground. Mai and Ty Lee gasped.

“Better watch yourself, dum-dum,” Azula sneered. 

“You did that on purpose!” Zuko accused her as he stood up, his face flushed with embarrassment.

“ _Nooo,_ I would _never_ ,” Azula mocked him. 

“Um, see you in school, I guess,” Ty Lee offered uncomfortably over her shoulder as she and Mai continued toward the doors with the guards. Mai was looking back at Zuko with that _stupid_ look she got on her face whenever he was around, with an added dose of concern. Ordinarily Azula found it amusing, but at the moment it was irritating.

She ignored her departing friends and focused on her brother, mollified by his humiliation. “So, where were you off to before you tripped over your own feet like the clumsy oaf you are?” she inquired. 

“None of your business,” Zuko replied, scowling at her.

Quirking a brow as she noticed the way his armor shone in the light, Azula reached over and swiped a fingertip across one of the shoulder plates.

“Knock it off!” Zuko shouted, jerking away from her. “I just had that polished!”

Azula smirked, appreciating the ease with which she could maneuver him. “You’re so stupid,” she laughed. “Why would you get your armor polished anyway? It’s not like _you_ have anywhere to wear it to.”

“I do so,” Zuko retorted, rubbing a bit of fabric from his sleeve over the place on his armor Azula had smudged.

“Oh really?” she pushed. “Where, the idiot festival?”

“I’m going to the war meeting tomorrow,” Zuko asserted, lifting his chin. “And _you’re not_.”

“Don’t be dumb. You weren’t invited,” Azula scoffed, though the mere idea of Zuko being somewhere so important when she wouldn’t be caused her alarm and sparked her anger anew. 

“So?” Zuko squared his shoulders and stood up straighter, as if to stress the advantage of his size over her. “I’m the Crown Prince. I have a right to be there.”

“Dad doesn’t want you there,” she shot back. “No one does. You know barely anything about our nation or our history. You know _nothing_ about military strategy. Your firebending is pathetic. You have nothing to contribute. You’re useless.”

“You’re wrong!” Zuko shouted. “And I’m going because _I_ am going to be the Fire Lord someday, so it’s _my_ responsibility to learn how to lead the Fire Nation. You wouldn’t know anything about that,” he added. “You might as well just go play with dolls.”

Azula narrowed her gaze, rage simmering just beneath the surface, but she would not allow Zuko to see it. She wouldn’t let him win. 

“We’ll see about that,” she replied with a shrug, the forced nonchalance nearly choking her. “Have fun at the meeting, Prince Useless.” With that, she strode off back the way she had come and left her brother to his delusions of grandeur, consoling herself with the knowledge that it was unlikely he would even make it past the guards into the throne room. 

She headed straight for the nearest courtyard and told the guards she found loitering therein to leave unless they wanted to participate in her training. They knew exactly what she meant and quickly cleared out, all bows and apologies and excuses. Fools. 

Alone, Azula took a few moments to focus herself and her energy. The tips of her fingers and soles of her feet still prickled with lingering fury, but she quieted her turbulent thoughts and imagined her master who had dared speak ill of her to her father. She would find a way to punish him for his betrayal soon enough, but until then, envisioning him as the target of her training would have to do. 

Blue fire exploded before her as she cut into the air, first with her fists, then with a series of swift kicks. She twisted and pivoted midair, ghosting over the ground with more grace than a dancer, yet each move delivering a blow that would destroy any enemy that stood before her in corporeal form. She dropped to the ground fully and swept her legs, a wall of flame raking across the ground. She continued on that way until the sun sank and she was finally spent, sweating and panting and sore. Only when she turned to retire to her chambers did she realize that she was not alone. Ozai stood on the far side of the courtyard watching her. He said nothing and did not acknowledge her before he turned and disappeared into the palace, but Azula imagined that he was pleased with her. He had to be. She had sacrificed so much, would sacrifice everything, do whatever was necessary to prove herself.

Exhausted, Azula barely found the energy to wash herself and change into her favorite silk robe before she collapsed into bed, into a dreamless yet fitful sleep.

The next day, everything changed forever. Zuko _did_ attend the war meeting. She learned of what happened therein by threatening one of the guards who had admitted him to the throne room with permission from Uncle Iroh, but soon enough everyone knew. The whole palace, likely the whole city, was buzzing with the news: Agni Kai.

Azula visited Zuko early on the day of the duel. She called him stupid for speaking out the way he did and speculated about how embarrassing it would be to be beaten by an old man. Zuko hadn’t cared. He’d been surprisingly calm and fearless, and all of her taunting seemed to roll off of him like water off a turtle duck’s back. She supposed it would be an exciting enough event regardless, and when the time came she entered the humming Agni Kai chamber with an air of elation. She could scarcely recall the last time she’d seen a _real_ Agni Kai, not the sort of nonsense that happened on occasion in the schoolyards of the Fire Nation. 

There were so many people present that Azula had to push her way toward the first row of spectators. The way she often went unnoticed in crowds due to her small stature was irritating more often than not, though on some occasions she was able to use that fact to her advantage. The event of an Agni Kai featuring her own brother was not one of those occasions. Most people bowed and apologized and hurried out of her way once they noticed her, which was satisfactory enough. When she was nearly at the front row, she found herself staring up at the back of Commander Zhao. She considered pushing her way past him, but that was needlessly undignified. She cleared her throat and waited, though the buzzing noise of the crowd surely prevented him from hearing her. 

“Commander Zhao,” she finally spoke, as loudly as she could without shouting over the noise.

The commander turned then, glancing over his shoulder at her. When he didn’t respond fast enough for her liking, Azula scowled.

“ _Move_ ,” she commanded with an imperious arch of her brow, silently daring him to deny her.

Zhao stared at her for a moment longer, then pivoted to the side and made way for her. “ _Princess_ ,” he intoned, his voice dripping with a disrespectful insincerity.

Azula didn’t care. It pleased her to force a grown man twice her size to capitulate to her will, even if that man was merely a common upstart like Zhao. She stepped past him with her chin lifted and shoulders squared, only to find herself standing directly next to her uncle in the front row of spectators. She hadn’t seen him, and if she had, she would have chosen a different spot. _Ah, well_. Perhaps she would find some enjoyment in his presence after all. He was certain to be fretting over Zuko like a nervous mother. Little wonder her brother was so pitiful. 

“Do you think Zuko will win, Uncle?” Azula asked, conversationally and with a feigned innocence. “His bending may be lacking, but General Bujing is an _old man_. Surely whatever advantage he might have in bending skills will be nullified by his advanced age and declining capabilities.”

Iroh glanced at her out of the corner of his eye but said nothing. Azula pursed her lips. So he wouldn’t take the bait, the fat old hippo cow. Annoying, but she could still enjoy the distress he wasn’t capable of hiding entirely. His gaze had quickly returned to its fixation on Zuko where he knelt on one end of the arena. She briefly wondered how little faith Iroh had in Zuko’s abilities that he was so clearly terrified for her brother.

She wasn’t left to wonder for long, as the reason for his distress soon made itself apparent. Zuko was not to duel General Bujing at all. Azula’s eyes went wide as her father ascended the steps at the other end of the dueling pavilion. She forgot to breathe.

Zuko stood, pivoted, and cast off the robe that rested across his shoulders as he assumed his stance, and Azula felt the exact moment when he realized it was their father awaiting him. He was frozen, and for just a moment, she could not move a muscle either. His horror felt like a cold trickle of terror down her spine. 

It passed the moment Zuko began to plead for mercy, trying to explain himself, babbling like a fool as their father approached him. The display of weakness sickened her.

“You will fight for your honor,” Ozai demanded, his deep, rasping voice ringing through the chamber. 

Zuko dropped to his knees, begging. _Get up, get up, you fool!_ How could he be so stupid? How could he not see what was expected, _required_ of him? He declared himself Ozai’s loyal son, and Azula felt a tingling numbness in her fingertips as she watched him grovel. She would never be so stupid, so weak. She would never be in his place, on her knees before the bloodthirsty crowd, begging for mercy rather than standing and fighting. 

“ _Rise and fight_ , Prince Zuko!” Ozai commanded.

Zuko did not rise and fight, and his refusal triggered a fury in Azula. He was a coward, a failure, and he did not deserve his place as the Crown Prince. He _did_ deserve his fate. He brought it upon himself. 

_I will never be like you_.

“You _will_ learn respect, and suffering will be your teacher.”

Zuko was crying, and Azula clenched her fist, waiting, her heart pounding in her chest. When Ozai rained fire down upon his son, her brother, she did not look away. She was not weak. She was not a coward. She would never deserve such a punishment. 

Zuko’s outcry pierced the hall, pierced her, reverberated through her as she watched him crumple to the ground, holding his face, screaming. Her nails were digging into her palm, her jaw clenched. The flash of fire that burned into her mind’s eye illuminated the truth: she was worthy, and Zuko was not. She had won. She smiled. 

Her father watched Zuko writhing in agony for a moment, then he turned away. He looked directly at her. She was trembling, she realized, but she did not falter. She met her father’s gaze with steel and fire in her own. She did not shy away from the horror. She was strong and she was worthy. Surely he saw it. Ozai’s lips upturned at one corner, then he walked back to the other end of the pavilion, picked up his robe, descended the steps, and disappeared. The chamber erupted into chaos.

Uncle Iroh cleared the barrier that separated the crowd from the arena and was on the pavilion with shocking speed, shouting for the physician. Azula stood unmoving as the people around her chattered and fretted and tisked and pushed as close to the pavilion as they dared. Zuko’s moaning was muffled by the murmuring of the crowd, but she could still hear him. She suddenly felt light-headed, but she couldn’t bring herself to leave. Finally, Iroh managed to get several guards to clear the way through the spectators and help him lift Zuko from the ground. They carried him out slowly, shouting at people to get out of their way.

“Serves him right, the arrogant, disrespectful little-”

Azula whirled, and Commander Zhao stopped mid-sentence when he noticed her staring at him. The captain he was speaking to beside him cleared his throat awkwardly. 

“You forget yourself, Commander,” Azula hissed. Her father had every right to punish Zuko as he saw fit, and _she_ had every right to glory in her rival’s shame, but what right had a cretin like Zhao to speak ill of any member of the royal family? 

“Do I?” Zhao asked boldly, arching a brow as he stared down at her. “Careful, Princess,” he added with an impudent smile. “It’s not a good day for royal children with unbridled tongues.”

Azula’s eyes went wide. That he would _dare_ even think let alone voice such a thing cleared her mind and brought her back into focus, full of rage and spite. 

“Perhaps _you_ would like a turn, Commander,” Azula spat, glancing pointedly toward the pavilion. “But I assure you, _I am not my brother_.” 

Zhao smirked down at her, as if he was laughing at her, but the captain beside him quickly put a hand on his arm.

“Apologies, Princess,” the captain interjected with a bow. “Nothing was meant by it. Commander Zhao and I were just leaving.” He grabbed Zhao by the arm again and pulled him backward a step insistently. Zhao relented, offered a mocking estimation of a bow, and departed with the other man.

Furious, Azula shoved her way through the lingering crowd, all concerns over dignity forgotten. The air in the Agni Kai chamber had become stifling, and she felt as if she couldn’t breathe until she pushed her way out. 

“Azula,” two familiar voices called to her the moment she stepped into the hall. She pivoted to find Lo and Li approaching, concern etched into their wrinkled faces. 

“Where is Zuko?” she demanded of the old women, not bothering with their greeting.

“They took him to his chambers with the physician and your uncle,” Li told her.

“Are you alright?” Lo asked, reaching out as if she were going to put a hand on her arm.

“I’m _fine_ ,” Azula snapped, pulling her arm out of Lo’s reach. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

The two old hags exchanged glances, and it irked her. 

“We just wanted to be sure,” the women answered in unison. 

“Why don’t you come with us to-” Li began.

“No,” Azula cut her off, and she brushed past them before they could get another word out. 

She hurried through the halls, past the guards blocking the points where the palace’s guests for the Agni Kai were allowed, and took the stairs toward the royal chambers two at a time. When she reached the hall that situated her room and Zuko’s, she stopped and waited. She could hear muffled voices coming from within Zuko’s room. She took a moment to catch her breath, forcibly slowing her breathing while she waited. Her impatience might have made the time stretch, but it seemed at least an hour before the door to Zuko’s room finally opened. Azula ducked behind a doorway as Iroh exited the room with the physician. They were speaking too low for her to understand them, but she caught something about rest and clean bandages as they moved away, Iroh escorting the physician out.

As soon as they were gone, Azula darted into Zuko’s room and closed the door behind her. It was dark but for one low candle burning on a table near his bedside. There was an awful stench in the room that raised bile in her throat, an overpowering scent of something medicinal, and beneath it, the smell of burnt flesh. It turned her stomach, but Azula crept closer anyway.

“Zuko?” she whispered, but there was no response.

When she stepped up to his bedside, Azula realized he must have been drugged. Zuko was covered to the chest with a blanket, and he was sweating profusely, his hair sticking to his forehead and the sides of his face. The one eye she could see was closed, but his brow was furrowed as if he were in pain even in the stupor of sleep.

“Mom…”

His fevered utterance caught her off guard, but Azula stepped closer still and sparked a flame in her palm to get a better look at him. Zuko turned his head then, as if unconsciously drawn toward the light, and Azula’s breathing hitched when she saw the other side of his face. Most of it was covered with a bandage, but the bandage was already soaked with sweat and whatever was oozing from his wounded, blistering skin. She could see the furious red around the edges of the bandage, his skin swelling and cracking. The bandage was completely covering his eye, and she wondered if he would lose it. 

Zuko muttered and shifted, then let out a guttural groan of pain that sent a spike of dread through her. She had nothing to fear, she reasoned with herself. She would never be in his place. The flame in her palm danced wildly, and she realized she was shaking. Azula quickly extinguished the fire, clenching her hand. 

Zuko’s one visible eyelid fluttered open, and Azula stiffened. He was looking at her, but he didn’t seem to _see_ her. Slowly, almost mechanically, Azula loosened her fist and reached out her hand to brush away a wet strand of hair from Zuko’s forehead that was sticking over his good eye.

“Mom,” he whispered again, and Azula felt her throat close.

“ _She’s not coming back_ , you idiot,” she rasped, hating the tremor in her voice. “She can’t save you. You should have been stronger. You should have _fought_.”

Zuko whimpered, and his eye rolled back in his head deliriously before it closed. Azula pulled her hand away, and stepped back, anger welling in her, tears burning behind her eyes.

“You’re stupid and weak, and you always have been,” she choked out. “ _You deserved it._ ”

“Azula.”

Azula startled at the sound of Iroh’s voice behind her. She hadn’t even heard the door opening. She inhaled quickly and deeply through her nose to calm her labored breathing, blinking rapidly to banish the tears that had threatened her. She would not allow her uncle to see her that way.

“It’s time for you to go,” Iroh spoke when she didn’t respond. 

Azula waited in stillness for another moment with her back to her uncle, ensuring she masked any trace of emotion before she turned. Even in the dim lighting that filtered through the open door he waited at, Azula could see the consternation written all over his face, and something more. He looked disgusted. He must have heard her. _Good_.

“I was just leaving,” Azula intoned when she was certain she could trust her voice. She crossed to the door and brushed past her uncle, but she stopped just inside the door frame and glanced over her shoulder at him.

“It’s such a shame, isn’t it, Uncle?” she remarked. “You know, I heard that _you_ were the one who allowed poor Zuko into the war meeting. Of course, you couldn’t have known _this_ would happen. Still, when you think about it, if you had been strong enough to become the Fire Lord, none of this would have happened. What a pity.”

Iroh said nothing, but Azula could see his jaw working, and his grief was nearly palpable. She despised the old man, and seeing him so distraught calmed her frayed nerves as she walked out of the room without another look behind her. 

It was not long after that the banishment of the Crown Prince was decreed. His failure to fight the Fire Lord for his honor cost him everything, and his disgraceful departure from the royal halls cleared Azula’s path toward her glorious future. In his loss, she had everything to gain. She didn’t understand why, then, on the day when Zuko finally sailed away with their uncle and left her with nothing between her and their father, nothing between her and her destiny… why she was left with the cold hand of fear gripping her insides, refusing to let her go.

  
  
  


* * *

Azula heard the mule’s braying scream as it stumbled, then a sickening cracking sound. It dropped to one knee, then toppled over onto its side. It held three of its legs straight outwards, but the fourth limb dangled in a way that just appeared wrong. Painfully wrong.

Swearing and dropping the reins, Azula rushed out from behind the plow and over to the injured animal. She sucked in her breath through her teeth when she saw its leg up close. 

“What happened?!” 

She pivoted to find Iriya rushing out of the house, concern etched into her features. The mule’s screaming had clearly been loud enough to get her attention.

“I don’t know,” Azula answered honestly. “It just… I heard this noise and it just…” She gestured helplessly at the creature, clueless as to what to do and not knowing if whatever happened was her fault. It fleetingly occurred to her that Iriya might be angry with her.

Iriya knelt by the suffering animal and stroked its nose, whispering soothingly. She gently touched the injured leg, and the mule let out a horrifying noise. 

“It’s broken,” she muttered, sitting back on her heels. She was upset, that much was plain, her wrinkled brow creased as she looked down at her mule.

“I didn’t do anything,” Azula began defensively, trying to remain calm. “I mean, I was just doing what you told me to.”

Iriya looked up quickly then, her eyes widening. “I don’t blame you, Azula. Gods, no.” She looked around the field then, squinting against the afternoon sun. She stood up and examined the ground near the mule, then back toward the plow. When she straightened, she placed her hands on her hips. “I don’t see anything, but I would bet he stepped in a burrow. Some kind of rodent, I would imagine. Maybe we’ll find it once we move him.” She sighed and shook her head. “It’s no one’s fault really. I ought to have warned you to look out for them, but even if I had, there's no telling if you would have been able to see it in time. These things just happen sometimes, unfortunately.” 

Azula felt more relief than she cared to let on. She hated the fact that even the potential of Iriya being angry at her distressed her, but she couldn’t deny it. 

“So, what do we do now?” she asked, wincing internally as she looked down at the broken animal again. She did feel some amount of pity for the thing, much as it had infuriated her earlier.

Iriya inhaled deeply and exhaled her breath in a huff, rubbing a hand over her face. “Well, I suppose we have options.” She knelt beside the mule again, examining its leg without touching it this time. “The fracture looks bad, but I’ve seen worse.”

“You can fix it?” Azula asked, crouching down beside Iriya.

“Maybe. There are no guarantees. I could set it in a splint, make up a poultice, and if we could fix some kind of rig to get him back to the barn, then we could set up a sling to keep him off his leg for a while and see how it heals.” She was thinking aloud, rubbing one temple. “But there are other things to consider. He’s getting up there in years, so he likely won’t heal as well. And I doubt he’ll ever be able to work again even if he heals well enough to walk. The stress could just cause another break.” 

“So it’s not worth it,” Azula surmised. 

Iriya was looking at her then, contemplating her in a way that Azula didn’t like. 

“What?” she asked, feeling herself growing defensive again.

“The truth is, I don’t know, Azula. And I don’t think this should be up to me,” Iriya answered.

“What do you mean?” she demanded.

“Well, you’ve been taking over the feedings of late,” Iriya remarked. 

Azula frowned. “You’ve seemed tired. And I’m faster and more efficient than you anyway,” she replied bluntly. “So what?”

“If you intended to take on that responsibility fully, then it would include this poor old soul too. He’ll need a lot of help, and he won’t ever work again. To put it plainly, he’ll be useless to us in _that_ regard, and he’ll still be another mouth to feed. He might have a good few years of just being a happy old mule left in him, but he’ll need to be cared for. I don’t feel right making the decision of what to do with him and then asking you to take on that responsibility,” Iriya answered.

“You want _me_ to make that decision?” Azula blinked at Iriya, not knowing whether she ought to be honored or offended or wary.

“It seems right to me, but I’ll understand if you don’t want to.”

Azula looked down at the old beast skeptically. It was panting and snorting, clearly in pain. To put it out of its misery seemed like an act of mercy.

“Is this some sort of test?” Azula demanded as she looked back up at Iriya.

“Not in the slightest,” Iriya replied evenly. “There is no wrong answer. We might be able to save him, and we might not. We could end his suffering painlessly here and now. We could try to fix him and end up needing to put him down later anyway. Or he might be able to heal, and live out the rest of his days peacefully. Truth be told, Azula, if you weren’t here, I would likely have no choice but to put him down simply for the fact that I don’t think I could lift him myself. But you _are_ here, so we have options.” She pushed up to her feet then, steadying herself with a hand on Azula’s shoulder as she did so. “I’ll go inside and get a few things. Think about it.”

Azula watched Iriya walk back to the house and disappear inside, then she turned her attention to the mule. The creature had calmed down to some extent, but it’s large brown eyes were still wide with pain and fear. She had no reason to care about the dumb beast, but she found herself almost instinctively reaching out to stroke its velvety nose. 

“You got yourself into this mess, you know,” she muttered resentfully to the animal. “Now what am I supposed to do with you?” The mule huffed and snorted, and Azula sighed. When she sat back and pulled her hand away, it began to move its legs and flop its head, as if distressed. She frowned and touched its nose again, then ran her hand up along the length of the creature’s face. It seemed to calm under her touch. 

“I think he likes the warmth,” Iriya remarked when she came back and found Azula that way, slowly stroking the mule’s face. 

Iriya’s arms were full carrying a few long strips of wood that they typically used as kindling, a handful of linens, one of her little bags of herbs, a mortar and pestle, a jug of water, and two small vials. She dropped the rag she’d been carrying on her shoulder to the ground, and Azula spread it out so she could unburden herself of her supplies. 

“Well?” Iriya asked as she knelt down beside Azula, supporting herself with her hands on her knees. “Have we reached a decision?”

Azula pressed her lips together as she stared at her own reflection in the animal’s wide brown eye, suppressing the feeling that she might regret her decision.

“I guess it wouldn’t hurt to give him a chance,” she replied.

Iriya smiled at her. “Fair enough. Then we won’t be needing _this_ ,” she said as she took one of the vials and dropped it into her pocket. “This one will dull the pain so I can get a splint and a poultice on him without getting kicked,” she added as she picked up the second vial, pulled a cork from the top of it, lifted the mule’s head, and forced the contents down his throat. 

“Got to give it a little while to work,” Iriya told her, patting the mule’s neck. “In the meantime…”

Azula raised a brow while she watched Iriya move her hands down toward the animal’s shoulder, inching them down toward the broken leg slowly, stopping when the beast flinched, indicating the extent she could go before she caused pain. Iriya inhaled deeply and closed her eyes for a moment, her hand hovering lightly over the animal’s flesh, then gently applying more pressure. She drew her free hand away from her body and held it in place, fingers extended.

“What are you doing?” Azula finally asked.

“Just drawing away a bit of his body heat to reduce swelling,” Iriya replied. “Eventually we’re going to want to apply heat to help with the healing process, but right now we want to keep the swelling down.”

“Apply heat how?” 

“Well, I suppose you could warm something up to hold over the injury,” Iriya said. “Or you could use your hands, if you know how.”

“Won’t that burn him?” she inquired skeptically.

“Not if you can pool heat without producing a flame,” Iriya explained. “It just takes a good deal of control.”

“Oh. Well I’ve… never needed to do that before,” Azula returned quickly, embarrassed that there was an aspect of her element she had never so much as considered let alone practiced.

“I’m not surprised,” Iriya answered with a shrug as she finally removed her hand from the mule. “I would bet most firebending masters these days have no knowledge of healing techniques, let alone the ability to teach it.”

“You can teach it?” Azula asked, doing her best to sound nonchalant.

“If I had someone interested in learning it, I’m sure I could,” Iriya remarked, looking as though she were trying to suppress a smirk. 

Azula glanced at the pocket Iriya had dropped her more dangerous vial into, then lifted a hand and pretended to pick at a speck of dirt she found beneath her nail. 

“What about your other skills?” she inquired casually. 

“Oh, much the same. I only lack for a student, really,” Iriya replied with a nod. “But if I happened to have a potential student who wanted to, say, learn to work with more hazardous materials, I would _insist_ that they learn the basics of healing _first_. It’s what my mentor would have wanted. And it’s just a good practice in general, I’d say,” she added. 

Azula glanced at Iriya out of the corner of her eye, and she couldn’t help but feel a tug at the corner of her own lips when she saw how the older woman was barely suppressing laughter. 

“You know you really ought to be careful who you teach that sort of thing to,” Azula remarked. “Could be dangerous in the wrong hands.”

“It could,” Iriya agreed. “But I think I trust this hypothetical student of mine.”

Azula turned and stared Iriya fully in the face then, any trace of playful banter evaporating. She wanted to tell her she was a fool, but the words stuck in her throat. 

Iriya grinned at her. “It looks to me like we have an opportunity to begin right here and now,” she said, patting the mule’s neck. “Now, pay attention,” she added, picking up her little sack of herbs and loosening the tie. “When we’re done here, you’re going to have to figure out how to make a rig to move this poor fellow. I trust your background makes you more suited to the task than me, because I can’t promise I will be of any help to you there.”

Azula swallowed the lump in her throat and nodded, realizing she was actually looking forward to a challenge. 

“I think I can handle that.”


	16. Chapter 16

“I had every intention of killing him.”

The needle slipped in Azula’s grip and stuck into her finger. She swore beneath her breath and pulled it out, pressing her lips together. 

“The Agni Kai is a brutal tradition,” Iriya commented. She wound her needle through the stuffed cloth in her hand with a deftness that frustrated Azula to watch. She should have been able to catch on easily, but the simple task was proving more difficult than she imagined.

“That wasn’t even the first time though,” Azula added. “I was tasked with getting rid of him, and I was happy to do it.” 

“Well, are you _unhappy_ now that it didn’t work out that way?”

Taken aback by the question, she lifted her eyes from her hands and stared at Iriya. They were sitting together beside their table, Azula trying to learn a new skill that was meant to help Iriya purchase several months worth of supplies on her next trip into the village during an upcoming festival. A celebration of the end of the harvesting season or some other such nonsense. She had found herself in a talkative mood that she almost regretted now, as Iriya’s way of pulling her out of herself somehow led her to confessing what really happened the day they burned the field. She managed to describe the sudden sense of panic, the struggle to breathe, the numbness and confusion as her mind forced her into reliving one of her worst days. Somehow, Iriya seemed to think what she experienced was normal.

From there, it was only a matter of time before she was telling Iriya about that actual day that she faced her brother in an Agni Kai, or at least what she could remember of it. It felt as though holes had been ripped in her memory, and the missing pieces came back to her slowly, sometimes only in her dreams. 

Azula shifted her position on her cushion to make herself more comfortable, but there was no fix for the discomfort she felt as she contemplated Iriya’s question. There was a wall inside her, a dam that was holding back a flood of guilt, and it was beginning to spring leaks. Or maybe _she_ was purposely chipping away at the wall herself by speaking of the past, hoping to break the dam. Maybe hoping to drown herself.

“No,” Azula finally answered, her voice low but steady. It was the truth. 

“Why?” Iriya inquired, glancing up from her work for a moment.

What was she meant to say? That some part of her loved her brother and always had, even when she hated him? That killing him would have been akin to killing part of herself? That she found a sort of comfort in knowing her family was alive and well, even if she was separated from them forever? She did not believe in any gods, not really, and she would have doubted the existence of spirits as well if not for her own experiences, but she felt that there must surely be _something_ out there that would punish her if she dared to voice such notions after all she had done.

“Because if I’m going to do away with someone, it ought to be on _my_ terms. Not because I was forced into doing it.”

Iriya glanced at her again, and Azula knew that despite the ease with which half-truths and outright lies rolled off her tongue, she was no match for the woman’s perception.

“I see,” Iriya answered simply, mercifully not challenging her. She stuck the blunt end of the needle in her mouth for a moment after she tied off a knot and cut her thread. “Well, I suppose there’s something to be said for agency. It sounds to me as if you didn’t have much in that way, growing up in the palace.”

Azula frowned. “That’s not true,” she argued. She disliked the implication of the statement. “Of course _everyone_ had to follow orders to some extent or other, that’s inescapable. But it was different for me. My mother was gone for years of my life. I took commands from no one but my father, and even he rarely handed down direct orders to me. _I chose_ my course of action more often than not, with his guidance.”

“Did you?” Iriya asked. “And those choices were _freely_ made?”

“Yes,” Azula replied stubbornly, scowling at her.

Iriya said nothing then, merely lifting a brow before she returned her gaze to her work. Azula clenched her jaw in irritation. She had never been free, she knew that. But it stung to admit it, even to herself. In truth, she had always been beholden to her father’s every will and whim, even when he did not issue commands. Even when he never spoke a word to her. She molded herself into exactly the person she _knew_ he wanted her to be, and she knew the consequences of displeasing him. Failure to live up to her fullest potential and to carry herself as an extension of his iron rule was never an option. But she’d found comfort in convincing herself that his decisions were hers and his ambitions were hers. That they were a team and they understood one another. That she was deserving and he loved her. 

Azula dropped her hands into her lap and sighed. There was no point to lying any longer, even to herself.

“I wanted him to approve of me,” she confessed. “So I made choices based on what was most likely to gain his approval.”

Iriya nodded, as if she understood. “Approval can feel an awful lot like love sometimes, but it isn’t the same thing.”

Absurdly, Azula laughed. She couldn’t help herself. The simple statement seemed obvious, embarrassingly so, yet she had spent her life conflating approval with love, transforming herself into someone capable of killing anyone who _might_ have at least cared for her, even a little, all in a desperate bid for the hollow approval of someone who never loved her and never would. It felt like a sick joke. 

“We don’t have to talk about this if you don’t want to,” Iriya soothed.

“Fine.” Azula lifted her head, grateful for a distraction. “Let’s not. Let’s talk about how I can’t _do this_ and it’s utter trash.” Frustrated, she tossed the half-finished doll sitting in her lap onto the table. “Might as well burn it and find something else for me to do.”

“Hm.” Iriya picked up the doll Azula had thrown and examined it with a critical eye. “Well, there are more preserves to be made. Some of the dried herbs need to be bundled and wrapped. And I was going to fix up more of my most sought-after remedies as well. But _these_ always sell best at the festival.”

“People really buy them?” Azula asked skeptically, looking at the pile of small, hand-sewn dolls Iriya had completed. They were eerily faceless, each one stuffed with down and bearing a core of dried thistle. A pattern was sewn onto the front of the little tunics they wore, meant as a talisman against dark spirits.

“Rude!” Iriya tutted, barely suppressing a smile. “Yes, people really buy them. Usually for their children, but sometimes just to place in their homes. They’re not supposed to be _pretty_ ,” she added. “They’re meant for protection.”

“So you said,” Azula reminded her.

It seemed like the most inane of local superstitions, but earlier when Azula had realized precisely what the faceless dolls reminded her of, she asked Iriya if the Mother of Faces was the inspiration behind the custom. Iriya told her no one was really certain where the tradition began, as old as it was, yet there was another ancient legend of a spirit who stole faces that seemed a more likely origin for the practice. The dolls were meant as a warning for children as much as a talisman against the evil being, Iriya said. That seemed a more likely story, as Azula would not have considered the Mother of Faces to be a dark spirit, potentially frightening as she was. The spirit had essentially saved her life, after all, even when she had given her every reason to do otherwise.

_I am a mother, and my child is also lost._

Azula frowned as she suddenly recalled the Mother of Faces’ words, but she couldn’t remember the rest. Something about pain and destruction, but she’d been too caught up in the pain of her own destruction to take much note. She took her poorly attempted doll from Iriya’s hand, staring at its faceless, half-sewn head, and she wondered. _Little good this pile of rags would do against a real spirit, dark or not._

“You can’t be good at _everything_ , Azula,” Iriya remarked, a faint smirk touching her lips.

“Want to bet?” Azula shot back instantly, despite having no intention of actually trying to prove Iriya wrong. At least not over something so trivial. “Well, I always hated dolls anyway,” she conceded, flicking a lock of hair over her shoulder.

“Oh?” Iriya asked, squinting as she rethreaded her needle. 

“I never saw the point to them when I was little, and the idea that I was _supposed to_ want to play with them was infuriating. I might have enjoyed these a little more, though. Maybe I wouldn’t have been scolded for cutting my dolls’ heads off if they already looked like these freakish things,” Azula remarked dryly, picking up one of Iriya’s completed projects by its dark hair made of yarn.

That made Iriya laugh. “Here, why don’t you at least finish the one you started. You can cut its head off or burn it when it's finished if you want, but I think you should keep it regardless of how it turns out. It would be a shame to get rid of something you put your time and effort into. Besides, it could be bad luck to destroy it.”

Azula rolled her eyes. “You sound like…never mind.” 

Iriya merely quirked a brow as she continued on with her work, her needle deftly flying through the fabric in a manner Azula couldn’t hope to replicate. She sighed as she rethreaded her own needle and decided to finish what she had started. 

“Tell me more about yourself,” Iriya suddenly prompted without warning.

“What?” Azula lifted her gaze to stare at the older woman for a moment, brow wrinkled in confusion. “You already know practically my entire history.”

“Yes, but I’d like to hear more _about_ _you_ , not just what’s happened to you and what you’ve done. You said you hated dolls. What else do you like and dislike? What do you enjoy?” When Azula simply continued to stare at her, Iriya smiled. “I could make some observations and educated guesses based on the time we’ve spent together, but I’d rather hear it directly from you.”

Mizek prowled over and nudged Azula’s elbow as she sat considering Iriya’s question, unsure of how to answer it or where to begin. She reached across the table and plucked a strip of meat from the remains of their evening meal which had long since grown cold on the table and tossed it onto the floor for the cat. Iriya waited patiently, her eyes trained on her work but for the occasional glance toward her companions.

“I enjoy competitive sports,” Azula finally replied. 

“I think I could have guessed that,” Iriya remarked with a laugh. “What else?”

“I dislike animals,” she answered, scowling when the cat rubbed up against her again. She reached over and scratched him behind the ears anyway.

“Yes, you’ve mentioned.” Iriya glanced at her then, clearly trying to suppress a smile. Azula pretended not to notice.

“I suppose I enjoyed the theatre when I was younger. And mochi. And having my hair brushed. Or at least, I used to. I don’t know about that one anymore,” she amended, thinking of the last time anyone else had touched her hair. Remembering the asylum soured her mood.

“I _hate_ parties,” she muttered. “And fireworks. Gods, I loathe fireworks.”

“Really?” Iriya asked. “Why is that?”

“For which?”

“Both, I suppose,” Iriya clarified.

Azula lifted her shoulders. “They’re both pointless frivolities that only the most shallow, vapid people enjoy.”

Iriya’s brows shot up, but she laughed. “That’s quite harsh. What if I told you I enjoy both?”

Azula narrowed her eyes as she contemplated her companion. “I don’t believe you do.”

That elicited a chuckle from Iriya, who held up her hands. “Alright, so I don’t. Or rather, I’m merely indifferent. I _do_ enjoy a good festival though. Do you?”

She was glancing at Azula from the corner of her eye again, and Azula instantly shook her head.

“Don’t even ask. I’m not going.”

“Oh, you think you can read my mind, now, do you?” Iriya queried, her tone imperturbably light and cheerful despite Azula’s dourness.

“Maybe _you_ are becoming the predictable one now,” Azula suggested. 

“Or maybe it just means we’re getting to know one another,” Iriya countered, turning to face Azula fully. “I’m not going to try to force you into doing anything you don’t want to, but I think it would be good for you to get out a little. You must be getting sick of these four walls and my face by now.”

“Have you lost your mind?” Azula shot back incredulously. “Have you forgotten that _my_ face was plastered all over the market in Laijee and every other damned place around here?”

“Of course not. I just don’t think that’s the obstacle you think it is. I’ll admit yours isn’t a face that blends into a crowd easily, but I think there are other things we can do to mitigate the risk of you being recognized.”

“Like _what_?” Azula was affronted by the foolishness of Iriya’s idea, but she could not deny that some part of her would jump at the chance for a change in scenery, even if just for a little while. Even if just for some festival in a dingy little village in the mountains.

“I believe it’s mostly a matter of behavior. You carry yourself like royalty. Don’t carry yourself like royalty, and no one will have any reason to suspect that’s what you are,” Iriya suggested, as if it were so simple. “Dress like a commoner, walk, talk, and act like a commoner, and people will see a fellow commoner. You said you liked theatre, yes? So _act_.”

“That’s the most ridiculous idea I’ve ever heard,” Azula scoffed, but she was already giving it serious consideration. It might be a _terrible_ idea, but it sounded like a challenge.

“We could always do something with your appearance to make you look a little less like the girl in the poster as well,” Iriya suggested. 

Azula found herself smoothing the ends of her hair between her fingers as she thought about Iriya’s proposition. 

“You’re forgetting another thing,” she asserted as she met Iriya’s gaze defiantly. “Even if I could _blend in_ and escape recognition, I have no desire whatsoever to socialize with the locals.”

“Oh I see,” Iriya replied, giving a slight nod. “Too good for us peasants, hm?”

Azula frowned. “I wasn’t including _you_ in that.”

“Why not? I’m just another nobody from a little village. No different than anyone in Laijee or Hira’a or anywhere else. If you’re above mingling with the citizens there, then you’re above mingling with me too.” 

“No, it’s not that,” Azula huffed in frustration. She meant exactly that, of course, but Iriya was different. Somehow. “It’s just that... well, I like _you_. I don’t like most people.”

“Ah. I wonder, how many people in your life would you say you took the time to actually get to know?” Iriya asked, arching a brow inquisitively. 

Azula opened her mouth to protest, then promptly shut it again. She had no rebuttal at the ready, realizing that she really had never bothered to know anyone the way she knew Iriya outside of her family and Ty Lee and Mai. Not even Lo and Li, who had been part of her life in the palace for as long as she could remember. But why should she have? 

“Plenty of people,” she finally lied, dropping her gaze to the material in her hand and shoving her needle through the cloth. It was quite possibly the most pathetically obvious lie she had ever told in her life. She was getting rusty. “In fact, I’ve always prided myself on my ability to understand people with very little effort.”

“Figuring out how to play with someone’s emotions and exploit their weaknesses isn’t the same as getting to know them. Nor does it lead to being able to like and relate to them,” Iriya countered. 

“What do you _want_ from me?” Azula finally snapped, eyes flashing with defensive anger as she looked up at the old woman. 

“I just want you to see, Azula, that’s all,” Iriya replied quietly. “When we first met, you didn’t try to get to know me. You tried to figure me out, and you did so fairly successfully. Because you didn’t trust me, and why should you have? You needed to figure me out to know if you would be safe with me. That’s perfectly reasonable, all things considered. But since then, you’ve gotten to know me. And allowed me to get to know you in return. You’ve apparently decided that you like me, which is flattering, certainly. So all of this being the case, how do you know that you don’t like most other people if you don’t give yourself a chance to really find out the way you did with me?”

“It doesn’t matter.” She closed her eyes, trying to hold her temper, gripping the barely-formed talisman in her hand. “There’s no point.”

_Everyone will let you down eventually. Everyone will run from you, or you’ll crush the life out of them. You’ll destroy them. That’s what monsters do._

“Azula-”

She stood up abruptly and dropped the cloth in her hands onto the table. “I’m going out to the barn,” she asserted.

“Would you like my help?”

“No.”

Iriya didn’t argue with her further as she grabbed a jar and fresh linens from the shelf and all but bolted out of the house. The chill of the evening felt good against her skin, and she breathed in deeply, hoping the shock of the cool air would help clear her mind. When she reached the gate surrounding the barn, she shifted the items she carried into the crook of her arm and vaulted herself over the gate, not bothering with the latch. Once inside, she bent a flame with her free hand and carefully lit the nearest lantern that hung against a post. She noted the unpleasant odor of the place but realized it didn’t bother her nearly as much as it once had. She was becoming all too familiar with things she never could have dreamed she would have cause to be familiar with. 

A soft, snorting whinny from the injured mule was the first greeting she received. The pathetic creature was awaiting her in his stall, unable to move much, suspended as he was with his forelegs barely touching the ground. He looked almost comical, but Azula took a moment to admire her work. The sling beneath his belly kept his weight off of his fractured leg while the harness she had concocted for his chest and hindquarters helped distribute his weight more evenly to relieve the pressure on his belly. It seemed such a simple and inconsequential thing, but solving the problem of how to effectively negotiate the creature’s care gave her a distinct sense of satisfaction. It was nothing compared to the thrill of crafting an airtight battle strategy or besting an opponent in a fight, but it would have to do given her circumstances.

The next greeting Azula received was decidedly less friendly. Iriya’s pet mountain goat was huffing at her, and she pivoted to face the animal as it pushed up from its favorite pile of straw in the corner and eyed her. They had something of a contentious relationship, and if she didn’t know better she might think the animal was jealous of her. She was Iriya’s newest foundling, after all, and had certainly taken up a great deal of her time and attention. Curiously, Zyn never tried to rush her when Iriya was present. If any beasts were intelligent enough to be capable of manipulation, then this one certainly was, and Azula almost had to be impressed by it.

“Try it,” she hissed at the goat. “Go on, I’m in just the mood.”

Zyn huffed again and stamped her hooves, but she backed down and trotted out into the yard rather than attempting to charge. Azula snorted and turned her attention back to the mule, but she would keep an eye out all the same lest she end up face-first in the dirt. 

She set down the jar and linens and crouched beside the mule, reaching out and gingerly running her hands down the broken leg. The mule flinched, muscles twitching, but he did not otherwise respond. Azula carefully unwound the bandages that covered the fracture, careful not to disturb the splint. She opened the jar and applied the liniment therein liberally over the mule’s injured leg, then wrapped the fracture in clean linens. It was all she was supposed to do, but she could do more. No sense in leaving it for Iriya to do later.

Slowly, Azula wrapped her hands over the fracture, keeping her grip light and free of pressure. The mule rolled a large brown eye backward, watching her, and she could sense its growing anxiousness. Hushing the animal to calm its nerves, Azula closed her eyes and breathed deeply, feeling the energy around her. She focused on her hands, drawing warmth from the air, from her body, from the animal’s body, concentrating on pulling heat into the wounded places that needed it most. The mule huffed, but he seemed calmed. She imagined the warmth felt good. 

_You can’t be good at everything, Azula_ , Iriya said, and perhaps it was true. Some things she wasn’t meant for. But this… she never would have imagined that she would find herself using her skills _this_ way, yet she found a sense of pride, maybe even arrogance, in how easily she was learning what Iriya taught her. At least the part of it that involved bending, anyway. The rest was much more complicated and involved learning the names and parts and functions of more plants than she ever knew existed to be of any use to people, all with so many ways they could hurt or heal. Sometimes her head was pounding by the time Iriya was through with trying to teach her something new. Bending though…bending was in her blood. It came to her as naturally as breathing. _A gift_.

Azula thought of Iriya’s first lesson in the art of manipulating heat without a flame. She had been afraid she wouldn’t be able to do it, that she would lose control and end up burning the animal or Iriya or even herself. She worried that her mind would disrupt her ability to sustain a practice that required calm and focus. Yet here she was, angry and perturbed as ever, executing it as if she was born to do it.

_You’ve always been good at control and manipulation. Maybe that’s not an inherently bad thing. Maybe it’s how you use it that matters._

Brow furrowing, Azula tried to tune out the unnecessary distraction of her mother’s voice -no, _her own_ voice that disguised itself in her mother’s tone and wore her mother’s face. She envisioned instead red marrow in white bone, stimulated by the heat to knit itself anew, slowly but surely mending all of the cracked and broken places. 

  
  
  


* * *

“You’re sure?” Iriya asked.

A week before the festival, Azula stood in front of Iriya’s small, solitary mirror over her wash basin, examining her reflection. She unwound the ribbon holding up her imperfect topknot and allowed her dark tresses to fall freely around her shoulders. She ran her fingers through it, gently pulling through a few tangles. It was time.

“I’m sure,” Azula answered, shifting her gaze to Iriya’s reflection behind her in the mirror. “Really, I ought to have cut my hair long before now,” she added wryly. “But then, I never had any honor in the first place, so it doesn’t matter.”

Iriya tilted her head and offered a sympathetic smile as she reached out and brushed her own fingertips through the ends of Azula’s hair before bunching it together behind her back. 

“Well then, this isn’t about honor. It’s a matter of practicality,” she answered. “Here, come sit.”

“Wait.” Azula pivoted and held her hand out for the scissors. “I want to do the first part.”

“Would you like help?” Iriya prodded, but she handed over the scissors without hesitation.

Azula nodded, and Iriya indicated for her to tilt her chin downward. Using her fingernail, she gently drew lines on her scalp and separated a section of hair over Azula’s forehead, pulling it straight forward. “Like this,” she instructed as she held the section of hair between the pointer and middle finger and waited for her to take over. “Pull it straight, and cut low to start.”

Azula took the section of hair between her own fingers as indicated with her free hand and turned back to the mirror, poised with the scissors. She stared at her reflection, and her heart began to pound.

“Take your time,” Iriya reminded her.

She had been here before in a dream, _in a nightmare_ , poised before a mirror with scissors and her hair in hand. The patched memory haunted her, but she could cut away its power. Everything was different this time. 

Her hands were trembling, but Azula pulled her hair straight, and slowly, patiently, she snipped into the nightmare, imagining it falling to the ground with her dead hair. By the time she was finished, her hands were steady, and she was staring at her newly-fringed reflection critically. 

“It suits you,” Iriya beamed at her in the mirror, hands on her hips. “Ready for the rest?”

Azula handed over the scissors and moved to sit on the cushion awaiting her. She pulled a second cushion over and dropped it in front of her just before Iriya knelt on the ground. 

“You need to watch your knees,” she chided the older woman. 

Iriya rolled her eyes, but Azula caught the smile tugging at the corners of her lips. “Shush and hold still,” Iriya reprimanded her affectionately.

Azula held still, unwilling to let her hair become a victim of her impudence. Iriya pulled and eyed and measured, then she went to work. Dark locks tumbled down her shoulders and back as Iriya moved around her, snipping away, and Azula was surprised by her own sense of serenity during the process. Only once did she imagine her mother lamenting the loss of her beautiful hair, and though it was merely a lingering memory that had only ever been conjured by her own mind, she still felt an antagonistic sense of satisfaction.

When Iriya was finally finished, Azula pushed to her feet and bounded over to the mirror. The girl staring back at her was the same yet entirely different. She picked up the wrinkled, crumpled poster that Iriya had brought home from Laijee and held it up next to herself in the mirror. 

“What do you think?” she asked anxiously as she briefly turned to face Iriya.

Already sweeping up Azula’s shorn locks, Iriya stopped for a moment and lent a critical eye. “I think you look lovely.”

“I meant _what do you think_?” she demanded, shaking the poster impatiently. She didn’t need to be told she was pretty, even with her bare face and newly shortened hair that would take some adjusting to.

“I think it’s possible someone might recognize you, but unlikely,” Iriya answered. “I meant what I said, though. Don’t act like a princess, and no one will see the little princess on the poster when they look at you.”

Azula made a face at her before turning back to the mirror again. Her brows were mostly hidden beneath the fringe, and the shape of her face could be partially concealed by the long, angled curtain of hair that reached past her chin and swept upward toward her ears. She reached back to touch the hair at the nape of her neck, shocked by the short ends of it.

“It itches,” she complained, scratching at her skin.

“You just need to wash up,” Iriya tutted. “Get all of the ends off. Go on and do that, and when you’re done, I have something for you.”

  
  


* * *

  
  


A creeping dread nagged at Azula the closer they got to Laijee, and she berated herself for having changed her mind. _Stupid, stupid, stupid. You’re going to get caught. You’re going to end up back in a cell or killing to prevent it._ Why had she changed her mind, anyway? Boredom? A desire to please Iriya? Self-destruction? Perhaps it was a little of all.

Iriya prattled on about what she could expect of the village and the festival as they traveled a well-worn trail in the afternoon sun, Zyn traipsing along ahead of them laden with baskets full of all of Iriya’s goods to be sold. Azula was barely listening, not so much for a lack of interest but more so from an inability to focus. Iriya’s voice was competing for attention. 

It was always worse when she was stressed, she’d come to realize. There were times where she could go days on end without so much as a hint of disturbance, and as her attunement to herself increased, she was slowly gaining an awareness of what brought her some semblance of peace and what sent her spiraling into chaos. As relatively peaceful as life with Iriya was, however, there was no avoiding all sources of turmoil. In truth, sometimes she did not even desire peace. Sometimes she felt that she craved strife and violence, as if her rage were a living being inside of her that demanded to be fed. 

Bending helped alleviate that too, though. On her worst days, she still struggled to even rise in the mornings and sometimes only did so for Iriya’s sake. Sometimes she didn’t at all. But on her better days… those days she was a force to be reckoned with. She rose early and ran circles around Iriya completing chores, doing whatever tasks were requested of her if only to prove to herself and Iriya that she could. She would sit and learn at Iriya’s side, whether the subject was nightshades as poison or nightshades as supper. She would often then spend hours training, not because it was expected of her but because _she wanted to_. Because it eased her mind. Because it made her feel powerful and in control. Because, freed of any outer pressures to perform, she could experiment. She could focus on what she felt as she bent rather than how perfect her forms were or how much power she generated or how many potential enemies she could vanquish. 

She might have a cause to be grateful that she had spent so much time training of late before the day was over, but she hoped not. She was not eager to hurt anyone, and if she was forced to in order to keep her freedom, it would destroy the life she had with Iriya. She would have to run, and that was the last thing she wanted. She fleetingly wondered _if_ everything went wrong, what would happen to Iriya? Would she face repercussions for harboring a fugitive? Azula didn’t imagine Zuko would be so cruel, but being Fire Lord might change a person. 

_He had no trouble leaving you strapped in a straitjacket in a madhouse, did he?_

“You’re not listening to me, are you?”

Azula blinked, trying to banish her father’s taunting voice. She was fiddling with the shortened ends of her hair which hung below her chin, having decided not to pull it into the little topknot she could just barely manage with its new length. She needed to give her face as much coverage as possible.

“Sorry,” she muttered. “I was trying to.”

“Not to worry. I just said we’ll be there soon,” Iriya replied. They had already passed a few outlying dwellings and small farms after descending from a higher elevation on the path. 

“How are you feeling?”

Azula shrugged, the material of her new outfit pulling against her shoulders ever so slightly. It was a gift Iriya had surprised her with, trousers of a dusty rose color hemmed with maroon and a high-collared deep maroon tunic with a sash to match it. It was simple but pretty, and appropriate for the peasant she was to pass herself off as. Iriya had guessed her sizing very well but for the fact that it was a little snug through the shoulders. “ _That’s the result of all of your hard work, not my fault_ ,” Iriya had teased her when she first tried it on. She’d offered to take her needle to it and let out the material a little, but Azula refused to let her. She looked strong, and she liked it.

“I guess I’m a little worried,” Azula admitted. “What’s the plan if someone were to recognize me?” She knew what _her_ plan was, of course, but she could not predict what Iriya would want, and much as she hated to admit it, some part of her would be sorry to disappoint the woman if her course of action was not one she would approve of.

“I suppose it depends on the situation,” Iriya mused. “Someone might recognize you, but that does not automatically mean they will do anything about it.”

“You’re joking,” Azula scoffed. “A substantial reward is being offered.”

“Yes, and plenty of decent people would not hesitate to inform on you for that reward. People are struggling. You’ve known what it’s like to experience hunger and uncertainty. Could you fault anyone for taking a reprieve from their struggles if they found one?” Iriya asked.

Azula scowled. “I didn’t say I would blame them. Self-interest is natural. So is greed.”

Iriya shrugged. “Perhaps. And I would not claim that the people of Laijee are somehow above such traits. But I do think you ought to give them a chance. They might surprise you.”

She wanted to argue, but the sound of a distinct _tramping_ cut off her protest. Zyn stopped and stomped her hooves, huffing the way she did when she was agitated. They were mere yards from a crossroads, their mountain trail converging with the wider road that wound around the mountains from Hira’a to lead into Laijee.

Azula cursed when she spotted them coming. An entire unit of domestic forces, marching double file down the road, led by a captain riding a komodo rhino. Iriya grabbed her arm.

 _“Easy_ ,” she murmured. “You’re just another commoner heading to Laijee for the festival.”

“They’re _soldiers_ , Iriya,” Azula hissed.

“They’re just people. And it’s too late to turn around now. You can do this,” Iriya encouraged. She made a clicking noise with her mouth as she gave Zyn a little push from behind to keep the goat moving. “It’s alright, girl. It’s alright.”

Azula’s heart was pounding, some uncomfortable sensation of fear and _excitement_ setting her on edge. “This was a terrible idea,” she muttered, but she kept walking.

They stopped when they reached the crossroads, Iriya taking Zyn gently by one horn to ensure the goat wouldn’t try to charge anyone. The captain passed slowly on his rhino, offering a perfunctory bow with his reins still in his hands when he noticed them waiting. He was an older man, and everything about him bespoke a man who had spent his life in the military. Iriya returned his bow, and Azula followed suit. The soldiers that passed as they marched along behind him mostly kept their gazes forward, though a few did cast sidelong glances their way. Azula’s pulse pounded in her ears, but she tried to appear as passive as possible even as she scanned their faces for any hint of recognition. It occurred to her that any one of them might have once served in close proximity to her, and to her disadvantage, she would not recognize any of them. Unless they had been specifically useful to her purposes at any given time, she never bothered to see their faces or look into their eyes. They were just common soldiers after all, an endless parade of pawns in her father’s war. Her war. They might as well have possessed no faces at all.

Whatever drop of pity or prick of guilt she felt dissipated when one of the soldiers smiled at her, in a way that was more than polite. It was all she could do to keep from curling her lip in disgust. No soldier would ever have _dared_ such a thing when she was Princess Azula. 

But she wasn’t _Princess_ Azula anymore, not really. She was…

“Mura.”

“What?” Iriya asked, glancing at her.

“My name, should anyone ask,” Azula answered quietly. 

She didn’t know what made her think of the friendly little girl she’d shouted at that day in Yama on the way to Hira'a, but it seemed an appropriate enough name for a commoner. 

“Well then, Mura,” Iriya replied when the last of the soldiers passed without incident. “Shall we carry on? My friend is expecting us.”

  
  


* * *

  
  


Iriya’s friend was a butcher named Tekai. He was an older man who appeared near in age to Iriya, of average height and build, bald, and sporting distinguished-looking facial hair for a man of his status. He had a kind face and a deep voice, and his strength was apparent as he wielded a cleaver to prepare duck and komodo chicken. He had set up a stand just outside of his shop where he could both cut and prepare the meat all before the eyes of the festival’s hungry attendees. 

“Tekai is always good enough to let me set up here beside him every year, and we both typically do very well,” Iriya was explaining as she utilized an empty stall beside Tekai’s to display her various wares for sale.

Azula was barely listening again, her attention taken by watching both the villagers milling around the market and the soldiers who were apparently not passing through anytime soon.

“It’s so good to see that Iriya has brought a companion along this year. I worry about her, alone all the way out there in the mountains. Where did you say you were from again, Mura?” Tekai asked, his words punctuated by the wet sound of metal slicing through raw meat.

“Hira’a,” Azula answered distractedly as she slouched against the wall of the shop. She’d always found that lies which had even a roundabout connection to the truth were the most convincing. 

“I went to Hira’a a few months back for supplies. That was when I met Mura,” Iriya explained. “She needed to find work, and I’ve found the older I get the more help I could use.”

Tekai nodded. “An increasingly common problem on both ends. We’ve lost so many from the younger generations in the war. So many aging parents with no one to care for them. And now so many of the young who remain are forced to leave their villages to find work just to get by. They say the capital and all of the largest towns and cities are almost overwhelmed. Our new Fire Lord has certainly inherited quite a mess.”

That caught Azula’s attention. She turned away from facing the rest of the market and focused on Tekai. His tone was casual, and his eyes were carefully trained on his work, but something about him suddenly set her on edge. She hadn’t seen any indication of recognition in his eyes when Iriya introduced them, but some people were excellent at hiding their thoughts and intentions. She ought to know. 

“Who is ‘they’?” she asked conversationally.

“Oh, you know,” Tekai glanced at her while lifting his cleaver in the air and waving it in a circle. “People. Just idle talk perhaps. Maybe it’s not as bad as some say.”

Azula narrowed her gaze and glanced at Iriya, who looked up from her preoccupation with arranging her wares _just so_ to meet her eyes. 

“I would hope not,” Azula replied. “So, what do you think of the new Fire Lord, Tekai?” Perhaps it was not a question she _should_ have asked, but it seemed like the sort of thing the locals would talk about. Or maybe she was just indulging an acute urge toward contrarianism.

Tekai merely shrugged as his blade sliced through the meat before him and clicked rhythmically against the wooden board. “I am but a humble butcher. I don’t know that it’s my place to have any such opinions.”

He looked up at her then, straight into her eyes. They remained locked that way for a prolonged moment. He _knew._

Azula’s fingers twitched and her pulse picked up, but Tekai merely smiled at her. “Iriya was telling me just before that you have a way with all of her animals.”

Azula quirked a brow and glanced at Iriya again, who offered her a similar infuriating smile. 

“I don’t know about _all_ ,” she replied cautiously, glancing at Zyn where she rested on the far side of Iriya’s stall. 

Tekai followed her gaze and laughed. “Well, can’t win them all, can you. How is my friend Mizek, by the way?” he asked, turning to Iriya.

“Wonderful,” she replied. “He follows Mura everywhere she goes, believe it or not.”

“Mizek once lived here, around my shop,” Tekai told her. “I tried to look after him, but he was being bullied by all of the other cats, the poor thing. So Iriya took him in a few years ago.”

“That’s the least surprising thing I’ve ever heard,” Azula replied, which drew a laugh from both of her companions. She let out her breath, trying to relax, but her mind was racing. If Tekai recognized her, as she suspected, what would he do? What would _she_ do? The man was Iriya’s friend, but she couldn’t take chances. 

“What can I do for you today, Captain?” 

The captain of the troops they had crossed paths with earlier in the afternoon was approaching Tekai’s stall, making a show of taking in the delicious scent of the cooking meat.

“Komodo chicken by any chance?” the man asked, leaning over the booth to get a better look. 

Azula pivoted aside and let her hair fall in front of her face, pretending to watch the crowd as lanterns were lit around the square. She inhaled and exhaled slowly, preparing herself for the worst.

“Excellent choice, sir,” Tekai exclaimed. “Give me just a moment.” 

The meat sizzled and crackled as he worked, and the captain stepped aside to examine the contents of Iriya’s stall while he waited. 

“Remedies for any simple ailments,” Iriya offered. “Herbs as well, or maybe a special treat for later?” she added, lifting a jar of her preserves for him to see.

“Hm. No, thank you,” the captain held up a hand. He hardly seemed to notice Azula’s presence at all, which was fortunate, but she remained on edge. 

“No time to waste in Laijee?” Iriya inquired affably.

“Oh, no, we’re in no rush,” the captain replied. “I’m just not a man with a sweet tooth is all. Perhaps I’ll send some of my soldiers this way later though. They’ve been on the road for a while now, and I felt they deserved a little respite.”

“So your business is elsewhere?” Iriya followed up, rearranging her jars yet again. 

“No, we’re meant to be here. We’re sweeping the villages in the north, hopefully for the last time.”

“Looking for something?” Tekai inquired as he flipped the meat. 

Azula _felt_ his gaze on the back of her neck, and she inhaled deeply. This wasn’t how she wanted anything to be, but it was too late now. She pivoted almost imperceptibly, and when she met Tekai’s gaze, he didn’t look away. Strangely, she also did not sense that he was threatening her.

“I suppose you could say that,” the captain answered, seeming a talkative man constrained by the bounds of his duty to avoid divulging too much. “But we’re also tasked with taking inventory of the state of things in more remote places. Fire Lord Zuko’s orders.”

“Ah. Well, it’s nice to have someone remember that we exist, for once. As anything more than recruiting grounds for the military, anyway,” Tekai replied as he stuck a skewer through the captain’s food. “No offense intended, Captain.”

“None taken,” the captain replied, reaching out to exchange a few bronze coins for his food. “I myself might have left the military long since if I had any other path available to me. It’s difficult these days even with the end of the war.”

“How so?” Iriya asked.

The captain gingerly slid a piece of meat off of the skewer with his teeth and devoured it with almost astonishing speed, taking a moment to compliment Tekai on his skills before he answered Iriya’s question. 

“Recruitment was down for a good bit, which was not a bad thing if you ask me. But it’s up again, not because we wanted it. Factories have closed, or at least reduced production significantly since the war ended. There’s little work. So you end up with people who are unfit for military service or don’t really want to be there, joining up because there’s little else for them to do. Pay has been cut on top of it, with the state of things. My men and women have families back home who were relying on them, and they’re struggling.”

“We were just discussing very nearly the same thing,” Tekai commiserated. “Though I’d wager we haven’t anywhere near the full perspective on the topic as someone in your position.”

The captain shrugged. “Anyone can see what’s going on. Frustrating as it is, I will say, I’m grateful not to be seeing our young men being sent off to die on some patch of Earth Kingdom dirt, and all for what?” The man made a disgusted noise in the back of his throat and shook his head. “I transferred to the domestic forces years ago because of that. There’s only so much pointless death you can see before it gets to you.”

Azula found herself watching the captain as he spoke, but he never so much as glanced her way. He barely acknowledged Iriya either, even when he answered her questions.

“You were on the front lines?” Iriya inquired.

“In the Siege of Ba Sing Se,” the captain nodded. “Terrible business. Such a waste.” He sighed. “Well. I won’t go into the gory details. This is a festival, after all.”

“You should take the time to enjoy it, Captain,” Tekai agreed.

“All in good time,” the man said, finishing off the last bit of his food and disposing of the skewer before straightening his armor. “I have to meet with the magistrate before I am allowed to enjoy myself,” he explained. 

“I’m honored by your patronage and wish you peace and success in the rest of your travels,” Tekai replied.

“Thank you,” the captain nodded. “Oh, one last thing. You seem like the type of man who knows what’s what around here, so I’ll go ahead and tell you that we are in fact searching for _someone_. I believe your village would have been sent the wanted posters a while back.”

Azula clenched her jaw. This was certainly _the worst_ that she had imagined, but she had hoped for something different. At least if the captain had never showed up, she might have only needed to deal with Tekai _later_ , somewhere away from the public view. Away from Iriya. Now she would be forced to handle the matter right in front of her and then fight her way out. She wanted to grieve for what she was about to lose, but there was no time.

Tekai nodded slowly, not raising his eyes from his work. “Yes, we were. There’s been no luck in that regard then?” he asked. 

“No, nothing,” the captain replied. “Just as well, I suppose. But you haven’t seen or heard anything?”

Azula closed her eyes, hating Tekai for putting her in this position, hating herself for the choice she was about to make, hating Iriya for making her think she could have any semblance of a life beyond fighting. And for making her care. She pointed her fingers, ready to channel the energy she felt around her like static on her skin.

“Nothing at all,” Tekai replied evenly. “I suppose you can speak to the magistrate about it when you see him, but that man barely knows what day it is half the time,” he added with a chuckle. “I don’t think anyone here can help you.”

The captain guffawed as well. “Ah, well. It was a secondary concern to our main purpose here. I do believe this will be the last of these sweeps. I hope so, anyway. But you’ll be certain to inform the authorities if you see or hear anything, won’t you, my friend.” 

“Oh, of course,” Tekai answered, though the captain had more made a statement than asked a question.

The captain bowed to Tekai, then offered the same cursory display toward Iriya and Azula that he had earlier on the road. “Ladies,” he intoned, hardly even bothering to look at them before he strode away.

Azula released her breath, realizing her extremities had gone numb. Iriya was staring at her, and she was staring at Tekai. The man merely lifted a freshly cooked and skewered batch of komodo chicken and offered it to her along with a smile.

“Hungry?”

* * *

  
  


“I don’t think you want to know how close that was,” Azula admitted to Iriya later as they strolled through the market together long after the sun had set, weaving through the revelers. Tekai agreed to handle what remained of Iriya’s wares and keep an eye on Zyn so she could enjoy some of the festival before it was over.

“I don’t think I do either,” Iriya replied, halting as a screeching child wearing a paper mask tore through the street in front of her. “I knew he would never say a word, but I admit I was worried you might do something rash.”

“Did he already know?” Azula asked suspiciously, casting a sidelong glance at Iriya.

“No, of course not! I would never have done that,” she tutted. “He’s just a more perceptive man than most.”

“Like that captain, for example. I could almost have been offended,” Azula remarked dryly.

Iriya laughed. “Well it was to our advantage that he was so… obtuse and unconcerned with us insignificant women, so I wouldn’t complain.”

“Not complaining,” Azula retorted. “He likes you, you know,” she added, changing the subject.

“Who, Tekai?” Iriya asked, raising her brows.

“Who else?”

“Oh, I don’t know about that. We’re good friends is all,” Iriya countered.

“That doesn’t mean he doesn’t like you,” Azula argued. “It’s obvious.”

“Well, pity for him, if that’s the case,” Iriya replied. 

“What, not interested?” Azula asked, lifting a brow.

“He’s a good man and a good friend,” Iriya said, “but _no_ , I’m not interested.”

Azula shrugged. “Well, I suppose that makes things easier, in case he decides to open his mouth.” She was only half joking.

Iriya tsked. “He’s _not_ going to say a word, and you’re not going to do anything to him. I trust him.” 

Azula felt the implication of Iriya’s words. She didn’t need her to say them. _I trust him. You trust me._

She hummed a non-committal response in her throat, crossing her arms over her chest as she surveyed the various vendors. “You know, what I don't understand is why he would even let on that he knew. He _had to_ have known that was dangerous. Why take that sort of risk?”

Iriya snorted. “Sometimes even the very best of them lack the common sense the gods gifted to goats.”

Azula laughed, but she thought of her brother, and an ache in her chest stole the moment of mirth away.

As if she instinctively sensed the shift in Azula's mood, Iriya nudged her with her elbow, then nodded with her chin toward one of the stalls.

“We sold every last one of the dolls you didn’t believe I could sell,” Iriya said, removing a change purse from her belt. “I think we can afford a little treat.”

She stepped over to the stall and made a purchase, picking her way back through the crowd with a small paper bag in hand. She opened it and held it out to Azula, who reached in and gingerly removed the mochi, one for herself and one for Iriya. Azula smiled in spite of herself.

Just as she bit into the delicacy and savored the sweetness of the filling on her tongue, a sharp whistling cut through the air, and moments later, a bang. Red sparks rained down, and the crowd gasped and clapped foolishly as one after the other, fireworks exploded and crackled and colored the night sky. 

Azula scowled, and Iriya tried not to laugh, but she failed.

“Well,” she said, holding her side with one hand and mochi in the other as the fireworks shattered the once-peaceful sky above them. “Can’t win them all, now can we?”

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy (belated) Azula Day! I wanted to have this chapter out yesterday since it is completely Azula-focused and yesterday was Azula Day, but oh well. It's also my absolute favorite month of the year, so I just had to add in a little bit of creepy folklore to celebrate the season. Hope you all enjoyed!
> 
> Buckle up, slight time jump incoming!


	17. Chapter 17

**Three Years Later**

Ty Lee felt like a ball of nervous energy as she ascended the white stone steps that led toward the Jasmine Dragon. She didn’t quite know why. Maybe it was just the time that had passed since they last saw each other. 

When she reached the top, she scanned her surroundings to find an open plaza with a fountain in the center, numerous potted plants strategically placed, and the Jasmine Dragon situated perfectly in front of the fountain. There were a number of stone benches for patrons or pedestrians to utilize, and a few tables set up directly outside the building. The day was sunny and warm, perfect for their use, and several patrons were already availing themselves of the opportunity to enjoy the sunshine along with their tea. 

Ty Lee approached the entrance of the building and paused. An elderly couple and a young man occupied tables to her right, and farther to her left a woman in a pale yellow dress with a white flower in her hair sat with her back facing the rest of them, cooling herself with a delicate fan. There was one table directly to her left available, and Ty Lee contemplated whether she ought to simply take a seat or go inside and find Iroh first. 

“May I be of service, miss?” a voice caught her attention. A young man approached from inside the building, impeccably dressed in a smart green uniform. 

“Yes, please,” Ty Lee replied with a smile. “I’m expecting a friend to meet me here, and I was also hoping to see Iroh.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” the boy replied. “Iroh left for the afternoon. He always goes home around this time of day to take a nap,” he explained with a laugh. “But he’ll be back in the evening when it’s busier. I can leave word that you were here, if you miss him. You're a friend of his, or…?”

Ty Lee nodded. “His nephew is one of my best friends,” she explained.

“Oh! You’re a friend of the Fire Lord,” he exclaimed. “Well then, we’ll be certain to take excellent care of you while you’re here. Iroh would expect nothing less. May I have a name?”

“Ty Lee,” she replied. “I was hoping to take a seat outside?” she added. “It’s a beautiful day.”

“Of course!” the boy replied. “These tables are practically brand new. We had many patrons asking for them, and several shops elsewhere in the city were already offering outdoor seating. Got to keep up with the competition,” he laughed. “Please, take whatever seat you wish, and someone will be out to wait on you shortly.”

“Thank you.”

Ty Lee took the only table available just to her left and sat facing the entrance of the Jasmine Dragon so she would be able to see her friend when she arrived. She smoothed her hands over her rose-colored dress and wondered if she ought to have worn something else. She’d noticed a greater diversity in the fashion of the city than what she remembered from her last visit, and no one who might have guessed at her nationality treated her any differently, yet she was acutely aware that she was fortunate to be allowed to visit the city at all.

“Ty Lee!”

Ty Lee looked up to find Ru Shi approaching from the same set of stairs she’d ascended minutes prior. She broke out into a grin and stood up, sparing no thought for decorum as she rushed over and threw her arms around her friend. 

“Ru Shi! It’s so good to see you!” she almost squealed as her taller friend enveloped her into a tight embrace. She smelled like something floral… roses, maybe?... and the warmth of her hug chased away whatever remained of Ty Lee’s nerves.

“I’m so happy you’re here,” Ru Shi smiled down at her as she pulled back. Her brown hair was styled simply and shone in the afternoon sun, and the green of her tunic complemented her hazel eyes. “My cousin is running late but he should be here soon.”

“Oh, no. You didn’t get my message?” Ty Lee winced as she looked up at her. 

“I guess… not in time? What’s wrong?” Ru Shi asked with a frown.

“It’s not going to work out. With your cousin, I mean. I tried to get a message to you so you could tell him not to come today. I don’t want to waste his time for nothing,” Ty Lee replied apologetically.

“Oh, really? That’s a shame. What happened? Wait, let’s get settled so you can tell me about it,” Ru Shi said, looking around them. “I’m sure it’s fine though. He’s probably already on his way up from the Middle Ring, and he sounded like he wanted to meet you anyway.”

“Here, I have a table already.” Ty Lee directed her toward their table and resumed her seat, with Ru Shi sitting across from her. “I hope he won’t be too annoyed.”

Ru Shi waved a hand. “It’s fine, I promise. He’s probably eager to get off the campus for a bit.”

Ty Lee nodded. “I can explain what happened, but maybe I should just wait until he gets here.”

“Sure, no need to do it twice,” Ru Shi agreed. “So in the meantime, how are you? How are the girls?”

“I’m good,” Ty Lee answered. “Well, I guess I _was_ good until… this stuff happened. But it’s more of a letdown than anything. I’ll be fine. And the girls are great!”

“That’s good to hear,” Ru Shi said as a woman in a green uniform approached their table and offered a selection of teas. They made their selections, and Ru Shi chose one for her cousin. “And how’s the Fire Lord?” she asked once the woman departed. 

“He’s great too, for the most part. I mean, I think he’s under a lot of stress, but that kind of comes with the job. But he and Mai are back together and they seem really happy, so I think that helps,” Ty Lee replied. 

“Oh no kidding? Well good for them. I always liked Mai,” Ru Shi commented. “I mean... not _always_ ,” she amended with a laugh. “But you know what I mean.”

“Sure,” Ty Lee replied, unable to repress a smirk. “But by that measure, you didn’t _always_ like me either.”

“Well, once we were on the same side, I did,” Ru Shi retorted playfully. “I hear there have been a lot of changes in the Fire Nation recently,” she added, lifting her brows.

“You could say that,” Ty Lee confirmed with a nod, picking up the steaming cup of tea the server placed in front of her. 

Ru Shi waited for the woman to finish serving them and walk away before she said more. “I have to give credit where it’s due. Good for Zuko. _Almost_ made me wish I’d voted differently and stuck around when I heard. Just think, you and I might be married by now,” she teased.

Ty Lee choked on her tea, quickly covering her mouth. 

“Sorry,” Ru Shi laughed. 

Ty Lee shook her head, and her laugh turned into a cough. “It’s fine,” she managed before slowly taking another sip of tea to calm her throat. “You wouldn’t actually want to be married to me,” she finally replied, her tone lilting as she matched Ru Shi’s teasing.

“I mean, I think we’d have a good run for a few years at least,” Ru Shi replied with a shrug and a barely repressed smile. “But the stuff with my family would eventually put a strain on the marriage. They would disown me.”

Ty Lee wrinkled her nose. “Huh? I thought you said your family is supportive?”

“Oh, they are. It’s not because you’re a woman. It’s because you’re a Fire National,” Ru Shi clarified, wincing dramatically for effect. “Sorry.”

Ty Lee shook her head with a laugh. “ _Oh_ , right. I forgot about that.”

“They’re not exactly open-minded that way,” Ru Shi commented, “considering the war and the attack on our village, and-”

“Right, I remember now,” Ty Lee reassured her. “And it’s understandable,” she added with a shrug. “So you never told them about us?”

“Nope,” Ru Shi shook her head. “Would have caused unnecessary drama, especially since we weren’t even together that long. They know we're friends, though. Did you ever tell anyone about us?”

“Just Mai,” Ty Lee replied. “A few years ago. She barely reacted other than wanting to know why I didn’t tell her sooner. Then she just said I should be with whoever makes me happy, which is…very Mai,” she laughed. “I think she might have said something to Zuko, though. Not about me particularly, but one day not long after he and Mai got back together he just came down from the royal chambers first thing in the morning making a big fuss about going through Fire Lord Sozin’s laws and overturning things and…well, here we are.”

Ru Shi pursed her lips and tilted her head with a lift of her brows, her expression approving. “Like I said, credit where it’s due. I don’t _actually_ regret not staying on, but it’s good to hear that Zuko’s trying to do what’s right. You still have to be careful though.”

Ty Lee nodded. “It’s not like everything just changes overnight just because the Fire Lord changed the law,” she agreed.

“Mhmm,” Ru Shi hummed. “Oh, here he is. Pimah!”

Ty Lee pivoted as Ru Shi waved her cousin over to them. Professor Pimah seemed young, and he was tall like his cousin. He wore spectacles that made him look very bookish, and his dark hair was slightly unkempt. Ty Lee rose as he approached and offered a polite bow, which the professor returned.

“Pimah, this is Ty Lee. Ty Lee, Pimah,” Ru Shi introduced them before her cousin took a seat.

“So pleased to meet you, Ty Lee,” Pimah replied with a smile that reminded Ty Lee very much of Ru Shi’s. “I’ve heard so much about you.”

“I don’t know if I should be worried about that, or…”

Pimah laughed. “Not at all. All good things. I think Ru Shi has depleted at least half of my library sending you books, which is a wonderful thing as far as I’m concerned.” 

Ty Lee winced. “I send them back when I’m done with them,” she promised.

“Oh he knows,” Ru Shi cut in. “I just never seem to get around to bringing them back. I keep telling myself I’m going to read them too, but now my apartment has been completely taken over by books I haven’t read,” she laughed. 

“Keep them as long as you like, and read them while you’re at it!” Pimah said with a wave of his hand before he picked up the cup of tea in front of him.

“I think one professor is all our family is going to churn out,” Ru Shi remarked dryly. “Still…not half bad for a couple of kids from Kyoshi Island, right?”

Pimah smiled self-consciously then changed the subject. “So, Ty Lee. Tell me about this position at the Royal Fire Nation University,” he prompted, leaning forward eagerly.

Ty Lee sighed. “About that…I’m _really_ sorry. I tried to get word to you that it wasn’t going to work out so you wouldn’t have to come all the way up here, but I guess it never made it. I sent it before I left Capital City, so I don’t know what happened.”

“Oh,” Pimah replied, raising his brows. “Well I’m sorry to hear that. I was very much looking forward to the idea of a little cross-cultural academic enrichment. But that’s quite alright. I wasn’t pinning my hopes for the future on it,” he added with a short laugh. “I’ll go on slogging away at Ba Sing Se University if I must.”

“You’re probably better off, honestly,” Ty Lee replied, looking down at her cup of tea.

“Why is that?” Pimah asked.

“Because the Royal Fire Nation University is a joke,” Ty Lee answered, trying not to let too much bitterness creep into her voice. “I mean, I guess it’s great if you’re interested in mechanics or engineering or whatever, but if you’re interested in anything else, you’re out of luck.”

“Ah,” Pimah replied, glancing at Ru Shi. “Well, I suppose that’s to be expected.”

“So what happened?” Ru Shi prompted.

Ty Lee took a deep breath before she launched into her tale, her voice growing increasingly animated as her frustration grew. “Well, I approached the headmaster first months ago, and he laughed me out of his office. Which I suppose I expected. But I guess I figured having the Fire Lord on my side was going to make it easy. As soon as he had the time, Zuko came with me to speak to the headmaster about expanding and implementing new programs. He also wanted to talk about how they could work together to make a university education more accessible to people who aren’t nobility. I offered to put together a council of students to decide what kind of programs we would like to have and work with him to make it happen. I told him we had a professor in Ba Sing Se ready to pack up and move to start! Zuko even used words like ‘collaboration’ and stuff. We were helpful and perfectly reasonable. Well. The headmaster would hear none of it, and when Zuko tried to force the issue, you know what he had the audacity to do? He called him a _tyrant_! He said at least Fire Lord Ozai understood the _order of things_ and didn’t try to force change down everyone’s throats, which is _ridiculous!_ But Zuko backed down.” Ty Lee paused to clear her throat. “I understood, of course. He’s sensitive about that kind of stuff, and I guess he needs to be. But it was just so upsetting. He’s trying to do something good! And that old man had the audacity to accuse him of being a tyrant. Then he told me I should count myself lucky I was even accepted as a student and _remember my place_. He implied I was only accepted because of my family, but that’s a lie! I passed the entrance examination same as anyone else.”

“I know you did,” Ru Shi reassured her. 

“That’s such a shame,” Pimah responded, sounding truly regretful. He adjusted his spectacles. “The young people of the Fire Nation deserve better than that,” he sighed. “Well, if there’s nothing to be done about it short of the Fire Lord ruling with an iron fist...what about you? Perhaps you would consider attending Ba Sing Se University instead? They’re accepting Fire Nationals as students now, and I could help you with the process.”

Ty Lee smiled sadly. “Thanks, but no. I already tried that. I tried that before I settled for the Royal Fire Nation University.”

“Oh,” Pimah blinked, raising a brow. “And what happened?”

Ty Lee glanced at Ru Shi. “Let’s just say they don’t accept Fire Nationals who participated in coups,” she admitted. 

“ _Oh_ ,” Pimah replied, somewhat awkwardly. 

“Yeah,” Ty Lee sighed. “I’m known to the government, apparently. The Dai Li has a whole file on me,” she laughed ruefully. “According to the university, that's unacceptable. I understand, though. And I guess I should be grateful I’m even allowed to set foot here to visit.”

“I’m not saying they’re necessarily wrong for that,” Ru Shi interjected, “but when you think about it...the Fire Nationals who _are_ being accepted into Ba Sing Se University aren’t kids from the streets of the Harbor, you know? They’re children of the elites. Their parents were waging war here, and now some of them are even profiting off of the aftermath,” she added with disgust. “But that’s okay, _they_ can attend the University because it benefits the people in power here. But _one_ girl who was strong-armed into participating in the war is out of the question,” she scoffed. 

Ty Lee offered her friend a small smile, appreciating her indignation in her defense, biased though it was. “It’s okay,” she said. “I get it. Really, I do. I have no right to be upset.”

“It’s _not_ okay, though,” Ru Shi contradicted. “I don’t know, maybe I’m just getting sick of everything around here. There’s corruption everywhere you look, and it starts at the top. Obviously the war was horrible and the Fire Nation had no right here, but really, what difference does it make to the people in the Lower Ring whether it’s King Kuei on the throne or some other puppet? They’re all some combination of corrupt and incompetent at the end of the day, and the poorest people suffer for it.”

Pimah laughed nervously, glancing toward the other patrons around them. “Ru Shi, you’re beginning to sound like an anarchist.”

Ru Shi shrugged, then lifted her cup of tea and took a sip. 

The professor looked at the timepiece on his wrist, then raised his eyes back to Ty Lee. “Well, again, I am deeply sorry to hear about the situation in the Fire Nation. It’s incomprehensible to me that one man should hold sole power over the entire institution that way. I cannot say that Ba Sing Se University is without its own problems with corruption, clearly,” he added with a glance at Ru Shi, “but at least they operate with a council. Or they pretend to, anyway.” 

“That goes for a lot of things,” Ru Shi remarked. “Why should one man hold so much power over anything, whether it’s an institution or a nation? That goes for an inept fool like we have here or even a decent person like Fire Lord Zuko,” she added.

Ty Lee contemplated her assertion. It wasn’t the first time she’d expressed such ideas, and it always gave her much to consider.

“Well, at least one man having sole power meant that Zuko could overturn all of the unjust laws another man who held sole power made,” Ty Lee offered. 

“True,” Ru Shi conceded. “I’ll give you that. Too bad he can’t use his power to help with this situation though.”

“More _won’t_ than _can’t_ ,” Ty Lee corrected. “But he has appearances to consider. Much as I’m sure he wants to just go around and tell everyone what’s what.”

“Don’t we all sometimes,” Pimah acknowledged with a laugh. 

“Even those of us with, ah, _anarchist_ inclinations,” Ru Shi admitted with a self-deprecating smile.

“Now that would be an interesting topic of study,” Pimah said. “Holding anarchist ideals yet still experiencing the urge to rule. I could happily delve into that, but I would never get the funding for a proper study, let alone permission. According to the government, anarchists don’t even exist here,” he added. 

Ru Shi snorted. “Right. Until they need someone to blame for everything that’s wrong in this city.”

“May I ask, Ty Lee,” Pimah redirected the conversation. “I assumed based on the books that have gone missing from my library and the fact that you wanted _me_ to take a position at the Fire Nation university that psychology is an interest of yours? Is that what you were hoping to study?”

“I suppose so,” Ty Lee answered, swirling the remains of her tea in her cup. “I’m interested in the mind, I guess, and…how it affects us. And what we do. I don’t think I even know enough to say for sure. I just…” she hesitated for a moment, uncertain if she should share the thing that had often exposed her to ridicule throughout her life. She took a deep breath before she went ahead. “I also have an interest in things that are a little, um, unconventional,” she admitted. “Auras, particularly. I’ve been able to perceive auras since I was a little girl. And I feel like there has to be some sort of connection between that and…the connection between the mind, body, and spirit.” Frustrated with her inability to express her ideas to her satisfaction, she sighed. “I guess that probably sounds ridiculous to someone like you.”

“Not at all!” Pimah replied, leaning forward again. “I find it fascinating, in fact. I would pick your brain right now if I had unlimited time. I don’t know if this will make you feel better or worse, but it’s unlikely you would find many people willing to entertain such ideas at Ba Sing Se University either. Too many rigid minds.”

Ty Lee nodded. “I guess I didn’t expect anyone to really indulge my ideas that specifically, but I thought that if I could at least study the mind then maybe someday I could, I don’t know, figure some things out on my own.”

“And there’s nothing to help you at all in that way in the Fire Nation?” Pimah inquired. 

“Not really. There’s a doctor I’ve spoken to, but he’s…it’s just not very helpful. Doctor Ido runs an institution in the capital, and he’s a smart man, but anything he knows about the mind, he learned from reading whatever he could too. He was trained as a physician. It’s not the same,” Ty Lee answered. 

“No, I suppose not. I do so wish there was something I could do to help,” Pimah commiserated. 

“Me too,” Ty Lee replied. “But I appreciate you even taking the time to talk to me about this. I’m sure you have much better things you could be doing.”

“Ah, nothing that I wasn’t happy to get away from for a little while.” He waved off her concern with a smile. “I do have a lecture this evening that I ought to go prepare for, however. You two are welcome to drop in, if you would like.”

“Really?” Ty Lee asked, perking up and glancing at Ru Shi.

“Really. It would be my pleasure to have you as guests.”

“We could do that, if you want,” Ru Shi nodded. “Though it’s probably going to bore me to sleep,” she added, grinning at her cousin.

“You’re welcome to nap in my lecture hall if you need to,” Pimah chuckled. “But I know I can at least expect Ty Lee to be all ears.”

Ty Lee nodded. “I wouldn’t miss a word.”

“Teacher’s pet,” Ru Shi teased. 

Ty Lee stuck her tongue out playfully.

“On that note,” Pimah coughed. “I think I’m going to head back to campus. Can’t rely on the monorail to be timely for anything these days. I won’t say goodbye since I expect to see you two later, then,” he added as he stood up.

“We’ll be there,” Ru Shi confirmed. 

The professor offered a perfunctory bow. “Until later.”

He turned and walked to his left just as the woman at the table beside them abruptly stood up to leave as well. He nearly smacked directly into her. The woman ducked her head and pivoted deftly to avoid him, and Pimah almost toppled over. She walked away rapidly as a flustered Pimah blurted out several apologies in a row, ignoring him entirely. 

The commotion caused Ty Lee to turn in her seat.

“Well, that was rude,” Ru Shi remarked as Pimah adjusted his collar and his spectacles. When he noticed that they had seen his awkward blunder, he shrugged and spread his hands wide. Ru Shi laughed at him, and he shook his head as he walked off. 

Ty Lee barely noticed. She was staring at the back of the woman in the yellow dress as she disappeared down the steps. 

“Wow. Right in the middle of our date, huh? You have no shame.”

“Huh?” Ty Lee blinked, finally ripping her gaze away from where the woman had disappeared from the plaza. Ru Shi was staring at her with a quirked brow and a barely repressed smile.

“I...wait, no! That’s not what I-” 

“I’m just teasing you, silly,” Ru Shi cut her off with a laugh. 

Ty Lee laughed self-consciously. She didn’t know why the woman caught her attention. She’d barely noticed her at all before. 

“So… is this a date?” she asked, changing the subject.

“If you want it to be, it is,” Ru Shi replied with a shrug and a smile. “I mean, look, nothing’s changed. But I figured maybe since you’re here I could show you around the city a little. Show you some of my favorite spots. Just for old time’s sake. We’ve got a few hours until the lecture.”

Ty Lee smiled. “Maybe we could come back after the lecture to see Iroh. He should be here later,” she suggested. 

“Perfect,” Ru Shi agreed. “Oh, something else I guess I might as well tell you now. I might be leaving soon.”

Ty Lee lifted her brows in surprise. “Leaving Ba Sing Se? But I thought you liked it here.”

“I did,” Ru Shi answered, leaning back and glancing around the square. “But I think it was like a…shiny new toy kind of thing, you know? The longer I’ve been here, the more disillusioned I’ve become. And honestly, I miss home. There’s a community there that I don’t think I would ever find in Ba Sing Se.”

“That’s understandable,” Ty Lee nodded. 

“I figured maybe if I go home, I might even be able to pick up the fans again,” Ru Shi went on with a grin. “I’ve missed it. There are other bands on the island, or maybe I might just try to start my own, since it doesn’t seem like Suki is planning on bringing our girls back there anytime soon.”

“I could definitely see you leading your own band,” Ty Lee replied. “And I get it. As disappointed as I am about all of this university stuff, the one good thing about attending in the capital is that I still get to be a Kyoshi Warrior. And I don’t particularly care about my studies right now,” she laughed, “so if I fail because I’m spending too much time at the palace instead of studying, it’s not the end of the world.”

“I say this with love, but I really, _really_ cannot picture you studying engineering,” Ru Shi laughed. 

“It’s _awful_ ,” Ty Lee groaned. “I feel like such an idiot. Like my head is made of rocks. And it's _so_ boring. I’m probably going to quit entirely at the end of the term. There’s no point to staying now. I’ll just go back to full time Kyoshi Warrior. Or maybe I’ll just run off and join the circus again at this point!” she added as she threw up her hands.

“You did say you were happy there,” Ru Shi pointed out.

“Yeah, but I think that was mostly because of what I was getting away from. I don’t know anymore,” Ty Lee shrugged. 

“Well, what do you say we multitask and figure out our messy lives while we get a move on?” Ru Shi suggested, standing up and removing a purse from her belt. 

“Ah ah!” Ty Lee put a hand out to stop her. “My treat.” She took out her own purse and placed a few coins on the table.

“Well now it’s _definitely_ a date,” Ru Shi grinned, holding out an arm for Ty Lee. 

Ty Lee stood up and took the offered arm, feeling comfort in the familiarity despite the years that had passed. Every concern that plagued her could be set aside for an afternoon. Ba Sing Se awaited, and this time she could see it as just a girl strolling through the streets with a beloved friend, just like any other.

* * *

“She’s going to have to get over it. I’m already sick of her moping.”

Azula was leaning against the railing of the observation deck of her new airship with her hip, arms crossed over her chest, scowling.

Ty Lee frowned. Mai was somewhere inside the craft, alone but for the soldiers operating it. She managed to coax Azula outside when she realized how much Mai's mood was getting under Azula's skin, not wishing to see her friend subjected to harsh treatment when she was already hurting so much. Claiming she wanted to see the ocean from the deck but didn't want to go alone had been enough. Sighing, Ty Lee reached up to push hair out of her eyes that the wind insisted on whipping into her face. 

“Come on, Azula,” she replied, disturbed though not surprised by her lack of concern for their friend’s feelings. “She’s hurt. She’s angry. She just needs some time.”

Azula made a noise in the back of her throat. “She’s being pathetic. They weren’t even together that long.”

“She’s had feelings for him since we were kids, you know that,” Ty Lee argued, crossing her own arms over her chest. 

“She’s killing my mood,” Azula countered.

“Well, we didn’t _have to_ come with her,” Ty Lee suggested. “You could have let her do this alone. I mean, Zuko’s already in prison. What more do you want?”

Azula merely glanced at her, and a feeling of unease settled in the pit of Ty Lee’s stomach. Azula had been in a rage after the eclipse, despite how handily she won the day. She seemed upset about Zuko’s defection, but Ty Lee couldn’t shake the sense that there was something more to it. She wished Mai had been able to leave quietly, _alone_ , when she received word from her uncle about Zuko’s situation, but of course there was no getting that past Azula. The three of them were off to the prison before she could blink, before Mai could catch her breath. Azula running the show, as always. She promised Mai she would be able to see Zuko first and get whatever closure she needed before she confronted him herself, but Ty Lee’s gut was telling her it was no _confrontation_ Azula was planning. She didn’t want to think about what she might have to stand by and watch. She didn’t want to think about what she might be expected to _do._ What she _would_ do, because she was a coward. Because Azula’s word was law, and she never failed to obey.

“What I _want_ is for Mai to stop degrading herself over a traitor,” Azula finally answered, her brow furrowed. “She’s better than this.”

“It’s not like you can just stop loving someone, just like _that_ -” Ty Lee lifted a hand and snapped her fingers, “just because they become… something you didn’t want them to be.”

She realized she sounded as sad as she felt, but either the wind mercifully masked it or Azula never noticed. Or simply didn’t care.

“You’re too sentimental,” Azula scoffed. “If someone betrayed me the way Zuko betrayed Mai, I wouldn’t be crying over them. I wouldn’t hesitate to take them down.”

Ty Lee sighed and looked out over the expanse of dark water beneath them, picking at the end of her braid where it rested over her shoulder. She got lost in her own thoughts for a few moments before she realized Azula was staring at her.

“Oh, _alright_ ,” Azula said when Ty Lee glanced back up at her. “I’ll go easier on Mai, if you think I should. But just for now. I’m going to need her to pull herself together eventually.”

The unexpected concession made Ty Lee smile for Mai’s sake as much as for the glimpse at the side of Azula that she so rarely saw anymore. The side that seemed to actually care about her. The side that gave her a sliver of hope.

“Yeah, I think you should,” Ty Lee confirmed, smiling with satisfaction. “Thanks, Azula.”

Azula shrugged, but the corner of her lips quirked upward ever so slightly as she glanced away. “I don’t want to talk about this depressing nonsense anymore,” she asserted. 

“Okay,” Ty Lee agreed. “What do you want to talk about?” she prompted, sensing that Azula did have something else on her mind.

“The fact that now _I’m_ going to be Fire Lord someday,” Azula replied immediately, breaking out into a brilliant grin. “I always _knew_ I would, of course, but it’s become a certainty much sooner than I dared hope.”

Ty Lee tried to ignore the fact that Zuko’s misfortune was the conduit to Azula’s joy. She reminded herself that Zuko had chosen his course and imprisonment was a natural consequence of treason. 

“Fire Lord Azula,” Ty Lee said with a smile, trying the title out, trying to ignore the hollow ache in her chest as she realized that Azula’s ascent would only take her further beyond reach. Trying to convince herself that it was for the best, because _Azula was Azula_ and always would be.

“Has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it,” Azula stated, quirking a brow.

“It’s pretty yet very regal. Perfectly you,” Ty Lee replied, and she meant it.

“So, have you given any thought to what title you’ll want?” Azula asked.

“ _What_?” Ty Lee blinked, staring at Azula in confusion.

“Well you’re _obviously_ going to be rewarded for your loyal service. So what’ll it be? War Minister?” she asked with a laugh. She was clearly joking, but the intention behind the jest seemed sincere enough.

“Umm… maybe...uhhh…”

“Maybe we’ll just make up something entirely new for you,” Azula cut off her stammering with a wave of her hand. “Or if you don’t care for any particular position or title, you can just take your pick of anything else you want. Just say the word and it will be yours, because your Fire Lord commands it.”

Azula’s amber eyes glowed golden in the sunlight, and the way she was looking at Ty Lee made her stomach flip.

“Um, how about… my own circus?” Ty Lee suggested. 

Azula groaned dramatically. “That’s just embarrassing. But I’ve given my word, and a Fire Lord’s word is her honor, so…I suppose you’ll have your own circus.” 

Ty Lee laughed, and for a moment there was no war or prisons or traitors or wounded friends or fears for the future. There was only them, suspended high above the water, laughing as if they were still children, light as air.

Azula suddenly reached over and tucked a rebellious strand of Ty Lee’s wind-whipped hair behind her ear, and she forgot how to breathe.

“Your Highness?” a voice called from the ladder below, over the hum of the craft's engines.

Azula dropped her hand to her side and leaned over the rail. “Yes?”

The soldier at the bottom of the ladder pointed to a mass of land appearing in the distance.

“Approaching Boiling Rock.”

  
  
Hours later… was it hours? maybe not even… Ty Lee sat beside Mai on the floor of a cell, hands chained behind her back. The heavy door slid open with a metallic screech, and the Warden stepped inside. He looked rattled.

“Mai,” his deep voice rang out as he lifted a heavy hand and rubbed it over his eyes. “ _Damn it all,_ Mai.”

Ty Lee’s heart began to pound as she imagined that he was about to deliver news that Azula had changed her mind. She wondered what method of execution might await them. She wondered if Azula would do it herself. _Dying by the fire you spent your life chasing? Seems fitting._

Mai stared up at her uncle defiantly. If she was afraid, she didn’t show it.

“ _Why_ would you do this?” the Warden demanded. “Don’t answer that, I know why. But _gods be damned_ , Mai! What am I supposed to tell your parents?”

“Not my problem,” Mai replied, her manacles clanking as she shrugged. “Guess this will be pretty embarrassing for them, huh.” She almost sounded _happy_ about it.

“Is this a joke to you?!” the Warden thundered. “You’re lucky to be alive!” The man was shaking violently then, sweat beading on his brow. “Even so, you are now a prisoner of the state. There is nothing I can do about that. Not to mention that you _broke my perfect record_.”

Mai snorted, and the Warden shook his head as he paced in front of them. “All of this for some boy!”

“He’s not _some boy_ , Uncle, you know that,” Mai retorted defensively. “And he’s not going to be a fugitive forever. He’s going to win.” 

Ty Lee wondered if Mai really believed that, or if she was just putting on a brave front.

The Warden barked out a harsh, incredulous laugh. “That reminds me. The Princess _commanded_ me to deliver a message to you.” He paused, grimaced, then delivered his message as if he were reading it off a paper. “The Princess wishes you to understand that it was all for nothing. That Zuko’s days are numbered, and you bought him only a little time with your freedom. She hopes it was worth it. Those were her words,” he added, sounding almost apologetic.

Mai narrowed her gaze, but she said nothing. Ty Lee felt nauseated despite the relief that they were seemingly not to be executed after all. How could everything have come to this?

“Warden,” a guard approaching the door interrupted. “The transport is here. The airships have just arrived as well.”

The Warden turned to address the guard. “The Princess is on her feet?” 

The guard nodded. “Just about. She’s leaving soon.”

The Warden heaved a sigh and muttered beneath his breath, clearly relieved. He turned back to them.

“Mai, you will remain here where I can watch over you,” he announced. He shifted his gaze to Ty Lee then, seeming _almost_ apologetic once more. “On your feet, young lady.”

Mai shot to her feet, somewhat awkwardly due to her restraints, but even faster than Ty Lee managed to rise. “ _No!_ Where are you taking her?”

“To another location. Princess Azula ordered you separated. I’m sorry.”

“That _bitch_ ,” Mai hissed. 

“Your friend will be safe, Mai,” the Warden promised. 

“You don’t have to do this,” Mai argued. “Just don’t do it. She won’t even know.”

The Warden shook his head. “Risk not only all of our positions but also our lives by defying her? Absolutely not. Come along,” he addressed Ty Lee, stepping back to allow her to pass through the door before him. 

Ty Lee bit down on the inside of her cheek in a desperate bid to keep her composure, but tears stung the back of her eyes anyway. Imprisonment had seemed so much less dire, less terrifying, when she envisioned Mai and herself enduring it together.

Pivoting on her toes, Ty Lee looked up at Mai. “It’ll be okay,” she said, trying to be brave though the tremor in her voice betrayed her. She wanted to throw her arms around her friend, but she could only pull at her restraints with futility. 

Mai turned to meet her gaze, her expression grim but determined. “We’ll get through this. We’re alive. That’s what matters.”

Ty Lee turned away and stepped toward the door, unable to say goodbye. The Warden followed behind her, mercifully not touching or otherwise forcing her. 

“Wait.”

They both turned, but Mai ignored her uncle entirely, focusing only on Ty Lee.

“Thank you.”

Tears spilled down Ty Lee’s cheeks then, and she could only nod. _Of course_ , she wanted to say, but it wasn’t _of course_. Mai had no solid reason to think she would have made the choice she did. She’d been shocked. Ty Lee didn’t know how she’d finally found her courage, any more than she knew how she’d found the strength to break her own heart with a few swift jabs.

The Warden stepped ahead of Ty Lee and led her through a series of halls, through gates that slammed shut behind them with decided _clicks_ , up the tower to the platform where she’d made a life-changing decision, into a gondola, and across the boiling lake. When they reached the crater’s outer rim, he escorted her personally along with several guards down toward the edge of the water where a transport ship awaited at the far side of the dock. Airships hovered in the distance, and they passed the one ship that had landed already, sitting at at the ready.

“Where am I going?” Ty Lee managed to ask, but the Warden only shook his head. She didn’t know why she thought he might tell her. They moved along rapidly, and Ty Lee felt her heart pounding as she approached the transport that would take her gods only knew where.

“ _Get out of my way!_ ”

Ty Lee stiffened and pivoted instinctively, as if she could defend herself with her arms behind her back. 

Azula was approaching down the path they had just traveled, and she very nearly shoved an unfortunate guard that was blocking her path on the dock into the water. It might have been the lingering effects of the chi blocking, but the way she moved seemed off somehow as she strode toward the machine. She stopped just before boarding, turned, and stared down the shoreline, across the water separating their docks. Directly at her. It was too far a distance to make out her features distinctly, but Ty Lee didn’t need to see her face to know. Azula’s aura was as violently blue as her searing flames. She stood there in her armor, in a warrior’s stance, hatred radiating from her like the sun’s own fire. Ty Lee wrapped herself in that hatred and made it her own armor. She finally faced the truth that the girl she loved was gone. 

They stayed that way for one endless moment, staring at each other without seeing. Then Azula disappeared into the airship, and the Warden guided Ty Lee onto the transport ship awaiting her.

She lost track of time as she traveled on the ship, locked in a cabin, but before she could sink entirely into despair, she was being offloaded by guards and transported in the dark, blindfolded, to her new home. She didn't need to see the prison from the outside to know that everything about the place was made of misery.

Ty Lee was placed in a solitary holding cell first, allowed to eat, and ordered to change out of her clothes and into the rough uniform all of the other prisoners wore. After she took her braid down and did her best to untangle it on her own, with no help from a mirror or another pair of hands, she re-braided it and waited. 

Eventually, she was moved from the holding cell to a block that she was relieved to find seemingly only housed other women. She was placed in a cell that held another occupant already, asleep on one of the cots in the cell. The girl stirred at Ty Lee’s arrival, but if it woke her, she gave no indication. Ty Lee tried her best to get comfortable on the thin mat and with the threadbare blanket she was afforded, but it was her thoughts that kept her awake more so than her discomfort. She tossed and turned for what felt like hours until she eventually gave in and cried herself to sleep. 

The next morning, guards came through and opened their cells, releasing them into a common area. Ty Lee’s cellmate was up and gone before she could rub the sleep out of her eyes. She was sore, still tired, and utterly miserable, but she was alive. That was a better outcome than she could have anticipated, after what she had done. She spent a few minutes stretching on the cold, hard floor of her cell before she ventured out in the common area. 

“You have _got_ to be kidding me,” a voice rang out mere moments after she stepped out.

Ty Lee scanned the crowd of women for the source of the unfamiliar voice, her gaze eventually landing on a tall girl with brown hair pulled into a simple bun. She was standing with her arms crossed over her chest, staring at Ty Lee, and she was surrounded by four other girls who seemed equally insistent on staring at her.

“ _That’s_ your new cellmate?” one of the girls chimed in, her mouth popping open. “Wow. I guess what goes around really does come around.”

Ty Lee frowned, glancing behind her and around her to make certain she was the one they were addressing. 

“Oh yeah, we’re talking to _you_ , alright.”

“What, you don’t remember us?”

“I’m….sorry?” Ty Lee offered. The girls _did_ seem vaguely familiar, but she could not pinpoint them. Maybe former schoolmates who had somehow stumbled into terrible misfortune, just like her?

“Where’s your nasty princess and your friend with the knives?” one of the girls taunted.

It clicked then. The Kyoshi Warriors.

“You really don’t remember us?” the tall girl asked, dropping her arms and taking a step closer. She seemed more curious than antagonistic. 

“No, no, I...I do now. It’s just...the makeup…” she stammered.

One of the girls snorted. “Imagine being able to run around destroying people’s lives and not even have to recognize them after the fact,” she said scornfully. 

Heat rose in Ty Lee’s cheeks, but she didn’t know if it was the result of anger or shame.

“Nothing to say for yourself, huh?” a girl pushed, looking Ty Lee up and down. “You might be able to do some freak tricks, but you’re not so intimidating without your backup.”

The tall girl held up a hand. “Alright, alright. Ease up. She looks ready to cry.”

“Good,” someone answered.

“What are you doing in here anyway?” the tall girl inquired with an arched brow.

“Being imprisoned, what’s it look like?” Ty Lee shot back defensively, finding her voice as she found that she was in no mood to be harassed so.

The tall girl rolled her eyes. “I mean what did you do to land yourself in here, obviously.”

Ty Lee didn’t want to talk to her, or to any of them, but the thought of going back into her cell and being left alone with her thoughts seemed even worse.

“I guess I committed treason.”

Someone laughed, and a few mouths popped open.

“No way,” someone said. 

“Oh, this should be good,” the tall girl commented, looking at Ty Lee expectantly. 

Ty Lee frowned. Was she expecting her to…what? Tell them a story? Entertain them with the most devastating moment of her life?

“I don’t really want to talk about it,” she managed, trying not to sound entirely rude. It probably wouldn’t be wise to get on her new cellmate’s bad side. Any more than she already was, anyway. 

The tall girl tilted her head, as if contemplating Ty Lee, then shrugged. “People usually tell each other what got them in here, and _you_ already know why _we’re_ in here. But suit yourself.”

Ty Lee chewed on her lower lip for a moment, suddenly feeling guilty. She supposed a condensed version of events couldn’t hurt… that much.

“I intervened when the Princess went after my friend. The one with the knives,” she stated simply.

Eyebrows shot up, and one of the girls shook her head. Apparently that wasn't enough.

“Okay,” the tall girl said. “So why did she go after the other girl?” 

“Because Mai saved Prince Zuko from falling to his death in a boiling lake while escaping prison,” Ty Lee responded, wishing she’d just gone back to her cell.

“Hold up, the jerk who attacked our village was in prison?” someone queried.

“Uh, I guess? Yeah. For treason against the Fire Lord,” she answered. “Apparently he joined the Avatar.”

A chorus of reactions went up from the girls, and one claimed she didn’t believe it. 

The tall girl held up her hand, and the other girls quieted. She seemed to be a natural leader among them.

“Let me get this straight. The prince committed treason and joined the Avatar, then ended up in prison? Then he tried to escape prison, and your friend committed treason to help him, and then you committed treason to help her?”

“Basically,” Ty Lee confirmed.

“Well, did he escape?” one of the girls queried, leaning forward as if she was actually interested.

“He did!” Ty Lee replied with a burst of unexpected enthusiasm, suddenly realizing how happy she was that Zuko made it.

“How did he manage that?” the tall girl asked.

“It’s... a long story. Complicated. But he wasn’t alone. There were a couple of other guys with him, and…” It suddenly dawned on her that the Kyoshi Warrior she’d fought… what was her name again?... had escaped as well. That the girls she was now almost surrounded by would want to know. “And there was one of you with them too!” she blurted out.

“Huh?”

“ _Suki_!” someone shouted.

The tall girl abruptly took Ty Lee by the arm. “Suki??” she asked, hope clear in her eyes.

Ty Lee nodded. “I think that’s her name. Short hair?” she asked, making a motion toward her chin with a flattened hand. “Yeah, Suki escaped too.”

A chorus of cheers went up from the girls. The tall girl released Ty Lee’s arm and jumped up and down before grabbing one of the other Kyoshi Warriors in a hug. They were so raucous that one of the guards on the level above them banged a baton against a metal rail and yelled at them to shut up or they would be returned to their cells.

Ty Lee couldn’t help but be touched by the warmth of their joy. It couldn’t ease the guilt that gnawed at her when she considered that she fought to keep Suki imprisoned, and that she enjoyed the fight. That she stood back, stood by Azula, and watched as Suki and Zuko and all of the rest almost plunged to a horrifying death. But she had given her fellow prisoners a moment of joy, and she took whatever small comfort she could find in that.

Distracted as the girls were, they didn’t immediately notice when Ty Lee slipped away and quietly returned to her cell. She sat on her cot with her head in her hands, trying to make sense of how quickly her life had changed. To come to terms with what she had done and what it meant for her future. What it meant for who she was. She lost Azula and lost her freedom, but she at least gained the ability to look at herself in the mirror and know she wasn’t a coward anymore.

“Hey.”

Ty Lee looked up to find her cellmate standing in the doorway and furtively wiped away the tear that had escaped and made its way down her cheek. The girl came in and sat on the cot opposite her, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees. 

“You know I was thinking...things get pretty boring in here.”

“Yeah?” Ty Lee managed, sniffling.

“Yeah. Those tricks that you do...can anybody learn them?” the tall girl asked, lifting a brow inquisitively.

“Um… I guess so?” Ty Lee replied. 

“Hm. So how would you like to teach me?” the girl went on. “It seems like an incredibly useful skill to have, and… well, I think you owe us.”

Ty Lee blinked in surprise. “I, uh...yeah, that’s fair. I guess I can try to. You mean all of you?” she asked for clarity, 

The tall girl leaned back and shrugged. “Well, I don’t know about the other girls for now. I’m not sure they want anything to do with you, to be honest. But I think what you did was kind of impressive, and…” She paused and looked Ty Lee straight in the eyes -hers were hazel, Ty Lee noted- and her lips quirked in a faint smile as she shrugged again. “Well, you can try it out with me. Maybe the other girls will come around once they see me knock you out with a few of these,” she added with a playful jab of her fist into the air.

Ty Lee laughed despite herself, sniffling again and rubbing her finger beneath her nose. “Okay,” she nodded. “I’ll teach you chi blocking if I can.”

“Fantastic,” the girl said with a grin. “I’m Ru Shi, by the way.”

“Ty Lee. Nice to meet you.”

* * *

The woman in the yellow dress fidgeted where she sat on the monorail, trying to maintain her composure. A Dai Li agent at the opposite end of the car was staring directly at her. She tried to tell herself it was only because it was unusual for a woman of her apparent status to be traveling to the Lower Ring alone, especially as the evening approached. Or perhaps only because she was pretty. 

She smiled shyly and averted her gaze, lifting her fan to partially conceal her face in a demure gesture. The Dai Li agent stared for a little while longer, then returned his gaze straight ahead. At the next stop, he exited the car. She released her breath, but her heart still pounded wildly.

When the car reached her stop in the Lower Ring, she stood and swiftly exited, protectively placing her hand over her sash. A cleverly concealed insert in the fabric kept her most prized possessions: what little money she had, a hard-won passport, and a carefully folded yet faded and wrinkled letter that was ripping at the edges.

The woman wound her way through the dirty streets, removing the dying flower from her hair and dropping it into the mud. When she reached her boarding house -a drab old building that looked like a gust of wind might knock it over- she entered and tried to make for the stairs as quietly as possible. 

“Oh no you don’t!” a harsh voice called out. The mistress of the boarding house stepped out of the adjacent kitchen, steaming ladle in hand. Her face was twisted into a perpetual scowl, and she held a hand out expectantly. 

The woman in yellow sighed and reached into her sash’s pocket, removing the last of her coins, and dropping them into the woman’s hand. Her hand was trembling.

The mistress counted the coins quickly and huffed. 

“This will get you through to the end of the week. After that, you pay up again or you go,” she demanded, casting a critical yet greedy eye over the yellow dress.

“I know,” she replied softly. She pivoted and all but fled up the rickety stairs that led to her rented room, slamming the door behind her once she was inside. She leaned her back against the door and slid down to the floor, her entire body now shaking violently.

She stayed that way for a while, trying to regain control. When it proved useless, she pushed herself to her feet and stumbled over to the dingy mirror over the washbasin. She dipped her trembling hands into the cold water in the bowl and splashed her face, scrubbing at her stylishly dark makeup with her bare hands. Kohl smeared down from her eyelids onto her cheeks, mixing with the powder on her skin, and her painted lips ran red as if blood were pouring from her mouth. She looked at herself in the mirror, wide golden eyes staring back at her, and raked her fingers roughly through the short ends of her hair, destroying its perfectly coiffed style.

A second pair of golden eyes stared back at her in the mirror, judging her and finding her lacking.

 _What are you waiting for?_ Ozai whispered. _Burn it to the ground._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ♫ It’s a long, long way to Ba Sing Se, but the girls in the city, they look so pretty... ♫
> 
> Anyway. Regeneration is 2 months old today! At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart to every last one of you, whether you’ve been here from the publishing of chapter 1 or you just finished binging the whole thing thus far. I’d like to think I would still be going even if no one was reading or engaging with my work, but you all are truly the fuel in my fire. Thank you for making this process so much fun and providing me with so much serotonin!! Love yous like Azula loves mochi ❤︎


	18. Chapter 18

And then I jumped on the hog monkey’s back and I-

Shut up, you liar! You did not!

_The twins argued until the taller boy punched the other in the arm. Their mother intervened when it turned into a full-blown scuffle._

Enough! You’ll chase away our customers! Why don’t you help Mura take the fruit down to the camp instead of getting under foot?

_The frazzled woman offered Mura an apologetic smile, her eyes begging for relief. Mura shrugged and hefted a craft of fruit that was just shy of overripe, destined for an encampment not far from the market, full of people forgotten after the war._

“Bet I can carry more than both of you combined,” she challenged. 

_The twins took to the challenge, shoving past each other to pick up the heaviest crate they could find. Mura stacked a second on top of hers, smirking._

_Trying to match her, the twins fought each other for the last crate. One shoved the other again._

“Just pick up your crates and let’s-”

_A scream pierced the air. The sky turned blood red, and wild animals came charging down the street, destroying the market, trampling wares and even people underfoot. Mura dropped her crates and grabbed the twins by the arms, dragging them behind the fruit stand. The fleeing animals were wild-eyed, crazed. Burned._

_Then came the smoke. A billowing cloud of darkness rolled over the city, choking it, blotting out the crimson sky. The air hummed with a deafening, mechanical roar._

_Then came the people. Terrified, running through the streets, screaming in terror, crying out for mercy. But there was no mercy for the people of the earth. The gods of fire reigned._

_Ba Sing Se was burning. Mura huddled with the twins and their mother behind the stall as the flames licked closer and closer, crawling along the ground and raining from the sky. She couldn’t move. Her lungs burned._

_A young girl in armor sat crossed-legged beside her, smirking._

I think you should take their precious hope, and the rest of their land, and burn it all to the ground!

_The girl flicked a lock of her hair carelessly as she spoke, a child decreeing death as if it were nothing, trading lives to earn a father’s love. Mura stared at her in horror, and the girl stared back, flames flickering in her amber eyes. The girl threw her head back and laughed, but she soon began tearing at her hair, and her laughter turned to screaming._

_Then the inferno consumed them all._

* * *

  
  
  


Azula flew upright in bed, shaking and sweating. She inhaled a calming breath as she rubbed her eyes, as if she could wipe away the images from her nightmare. The room was cool and dark. Ba Sing Se was not burning.

She grimaced as she swung her legs over the side of the miserable excuse for a bed, pressing her fingertips to her throbbing temples. Exhausted. She’d barely slept, and what little she had was plagued with disturbance. Eventually, she stood and slipped over to the window, throwing open the creaking shutter. A lone streak of pink in the gray sky over the city promised dawn was coming. 

Azula’s empty stomach growled angrily, and her head was pounding, but she scarcely noticed. With the fading of her nightmare, she couldn’t escape the memory of the day before. It wasn’t simply that she’d so nearly been caught, distressing as that was. That happened before, two weeks prior, when Iroh returned to the Jasmine Dragon earlier than usual. If he saw her, no doubt she would have ended up in an Earth Kingdom cell or fighting the Dai Li to the death. That close call had wrecked her nerves for the evening, yet she kept going back anyway like some sort of fool. But even that had not been nearly so bad as _this_. It hadn’t been Ty Lee. 

She was among the last people Azula could have anticipated, if she lied to herself well enough to pretend there was never any underlying hope. Yet she never _really_ thought she would ever see her again. Not that she had seen her at all. She hadn’t dared turn around. But she heard her voice, _felt_ how close she was…it was all she could do to keep her composure and escape.

 _Yes, you_ heard _her. You ruined her life._

Azula inhaled and exhaled slowly. That wasn’t all she heard. She tried not to think about the rest, but she couldn’t help it. That girl…a Kyoshi Warrior, of all people… _the things she said_. She should have been shocked, but she wasn’t. She was just angry. Deeply, irrationally angry. As if it had anything to do with her. 

As if Ty Lee still belonged to her. 

_You put her in prison._

The likelihood that the Kyoshi Warrior was also one of the ones she had imprisoned occurred to her, and the irony of it slapped her in the face. She could almost laugh if the thought didn’t make her sick. She hated herself. She hated the Kyoshi Warrior. She hated Ty Lee. 

_No, not Ty Lee_. She couldn’t any longer. She tried to, but when she thought of the closest companion of her childhood who was once so devoted to her, there was only an aching emptiness, the absence of what she once possessed. What she had _thrown away_. And an anguished, relentless guilt that she could barely keep at bay. There was no more fury, no matter how many times she might try to conjure it by replaying Ty Lee’s betrayal over and over again in her mind. There was only a ghost mocking her. Laughing at her. She brought it on herself.

And she’d ruined Ty Lee’s future. She recruited her by force, that was the truth of it. She did what she could to allow herself to believe that _her friend_ changed her mind and came willingly, because the rejection had stung and she refused to accept it. But she’d only ever been lying to herself. And now, all these years later, her actions had unforeseen consequences. Ty Lee’s dreams were just another pile of ashes in her wake. 

But their paths had almost crossed again at the fruition of someone else’s dreams: the Jasmine Dragon, such a proud and peaceful little place nestled in the heart of the city’s Upper Ring. A magnificent front. It reeked of sanctimony and stank of a thousand bodies rotting in the sun at the walls of Ba Sing Se.

 _Why should_ he _get his dreams and a peaceful life?_

Ozai’s voice -no, it was _her_ voice, hers, it always was- taunted her. It seemed a reconquest was the price of washing away six hundred days of blood. Six hundred days of siege. _Uncle_ could wage warfare and death against Ba Sing Se for six hundred days and still retire to his little shop in the very same city, serving up tea and his stupid adages. Yet Ty Lee was barred from what she wanted for a mere handful of days of coerced and bloodless service. It was desperately, disgustingly unfair. 

But it was _her_ fault, not her uncle’s. Her fault. In one selfish stroke, she ripped Ty Lee away from a life she loved and tore her future apart as well. _Your fault, all your fault_ , _only your fault_. _Monster._

Azula leaned against the window, gripping her head in her hands, raking her fingers through her hair. She wanted to go back to the Jasmine Dragon anyway, one last time. She wanted to raze it to the ground. She would enjoy watching it burn.

 _You never should have come here._ Ursa stood beside her, concern etched into her furrowed brow. _Go home, where it’s safe. Where you’re loved_.

She tried not to think of Iriya. The last thing she needed was more guilt. 

_She must be worried sick_ , Ursa whispered. _If you’re caught, she’ll never know what became of you. Please, go home_ , _before it’s too late._ _You’re out of control._

Azula abruptly straightened and strode over to the washbasin, dipped her hands into the icy water, and splashed it on her face. Shaking her hands dry, she placed them on either side of the cold ceramic bowl and drew in a measured breath.

“Out of control, am I?” she muttered bitterly. 

She focused on seeking out energy, pulling what she could from the chilled morning air, from her own body. _Inhale_ , _exhale_. She felt the energy flow, forced it from the palms of her hands, imagined washing herself with the warmed water…

The bowl burst in her hands in an explosion of blue flames. Covered for a moment in a cloud of steam as water splashed over fire, she didn’t immediately process that the sharp pain in her palm was the result of shattered ceramic slicing into her skin. Azula barely reacted as she looked down at the blood trickling from the gash. It hurt, but the pain gave her a sense of clarity, as if all of her turmoil could be concentrated in a few inches of her flesh. She lifted her hand and simply watched for a moment as the stream of red flowed through the lines of her palm before pooling at the edge of her hand and dripping to the floor.

The laceration did not appear overly deep, but it needed to be cleaned and dressed if she intended to expose herself to the filth of Ba Sing Se. But she had nothing, not even any more water to wash it with. Calculating her options, she decided in favor of seeking out the one friendly face she knew in the city over sneaking into Fena’s kitchen. The woman was an impossibly light sleeper, always ready to catch a boarder who owed rent, and she was surprised her little accident hadn’t already woken the peevish woman. 

Mindful of her smarting hand and the blood that slowly congealed around her wound, Azula dressed herself for the day in a pair of ugly gray trousers and a faded green tunic, ignoring the temptation of the yellow dress. She was a wreck, and she had no more money for a ticket to the Upper Ring anyway. A fortunate thing. 

She took a moment to examine herself in the dirty mirror: bare face, bloody hand, tangled hair, empty pockets, and dressed almost worse than the average Lower Ring peasant.

 _“The Conqueror of Ba Sing Se!”_ she announced with a dramatic sweep of her good hand. Then she laughed. It was very funny. 

“Whose jokes are _never funny_ now?” she demanded, as if anyone would answer. Hers had certainly gotten better. Perhaps only because the subject of them was now herself.

Before she left, Azula kicked the broken shards of the bowl under the bed and smeared the droplets of blood on the floor away as best she could, hoping the mistress of the boarding house wouldn’t find occasion to go snooping in her room while she was gone. She slung her worn satchel that contained her only possessions in the world over her shoulder, slipped into her shoes, and crept down the stairs and out of the building.

Ba Sing Se was already awake, if it ever really went to sleep, and Azula would take advantage. She had to _do something._ She didn’t yet know what. There was no way to turn back time. But she would figure it out, find _something_ , and whatever that thing was, it would not be accomplished with empty pockets. Or on an empty stomach.

  
  
  


* * *

  
  


**Six Months Earlier**

  
  


It might have begun with the mule.

Azula stood beside the pen at daybreak just after feeding all of the animals for the last time. At least for a while. The place still felt empty despite the presence of all of the other hungry, greedy creatures.

She never even named him. Iriya warned her that naming the mule would make him a pet, make her grow more attached, so she hadn’t. She grew attached anyway. She was proud of the work she had done on his leg, and it moved her to watch him live out his days eating and sleeping and basking in the sun in an open field, content and utterly useless. She enjoyed petting his velvety nose and the way he would greet her every morning as if he was happy to see her. She knew better than to let herself care. Maybe if she’d been stronger in her resolve… maybe then it wouldn’t have affected her so much when the stupid beast died. When she put him down, with his head in her lap and poison in her hand. _He had a good life_ , Iriya said. He was old, and the refracture wasn’t healing, no matter how hard they tried. She couldn’t save him, and an act of mercy was all she could give. She failed.

Zyn trotted up to the gate, butting her head into Azula’s outstretched hand. They’d long since come to peaceful terms with one another, but the mountain goat rarely went out of her way to express any manner of affection. She must have known Azula was leaving.

“You’ll have her to all yourself for now, you spoiled brat,” she murmured, stroking the animal’s thick white hair. “Better make the most of it.”

The spring air held a chill, and she shivered before she focused on her breathing and manipulated her energy to warm herself. She checked the yard once more to ensure everything was in order before she stole softly back to the house, worried Iriya would wake too soon. 

Maybe it hadn’t only been about the mule. She became irritable and petulant in the aftermath of its death -more so than usual, anyway- and Iriya was patient with her, but it was more than that. If she was honest with herself, it was more.

It might have begun earlier, in the mild nothingness of the most recent winter, when the sky was perpetually gray and the sun hid for days or even weeks at a time and nothing grew but her agitation. She knew spring would bring rain and wildflowers and summer would bring sun and fire lilies, and she could dig her fingers into the softened earth and plant seeds and grow life from the ground the way Iriya taught her. Spring did come, but it was too late to cure her restlessness.

Iriya knew how she felt. She said it was to be expected, that she was too young to be cooped up in their little home hours away from anyone else with only an old woman for companionship. She wanted Azula to spend more time in the village, to socialize with other young people beyond the few times each year she would accompany Iriya in and make acquaintances. She wanted her to make friends. 

Azula scoffed at this. She claimed she didn’t need friends. That it was too risky anyway. Never mind that no one in Laijee had ever recognized her after the incident with Tekai on her first visit to the village. Or at least if they had, they were wise enough not to let on. No one ever breathed a word. No soldiers stormed their home and tried to take her away. They might not have recognized her at all, or they might have been afraid of her, but it wasn’t only her. Iriya herself seemed to command a certain _healthy respect_ in the village. It wasn’t quite fear, but it quickly became apparent to Azula that whatever whispers surrounded Iriya in Hira’a had quietly followed her to Laijee as well. Tekai once admitted that some in the village referred to her as _that mountain witch_ , a phrase which turned to _those mountain witches_ not long after Azula appeared at her side. She found it amusing, though Iriya did not.

Even so, they had little trouble finding less credulous young people willing to take up an offer Iriya presented. It was an idea she cooked up over tea and dumplings that Azula had agreed to, more reluctantly than she let on. What if they offered work to the youth in the village? They could clear more land, plant more in the spring, harvest more in the autumn. They’d done a little more each year since Azula arrived, and they always had more than enough for themselves, so why not help fill other empty pockets and bellies? In some small way, they could help ease the need for the young to leave their homes and families entirely to seek work in the cities.

 _Only if you’re sure you’re alright with it_ , Iriya stipulated. _You are my priority_. 

Selfishly, Azula wanted to say no. But how could she when she saw the way Iriya’s eyes lit up when she spoke of teaching the ways of the land and caring for their animals and sending the youth of Laijee back home to their families with food, money, skills, medicine, knowledge, and whatever else she could provide them with? When Iriya credited _her_ with inspiring the idea? She couldn’t bring herself to let Iriya down any more than she could admit that the mere thought of the plan made her pathetically jealous over the sole person in the world who seemed to love her.

So she said yes, and she went to work alongside hired hands from the village to build on to Iriya’s home, creating a new living space. They built the room in a matter of days and furnished it in a few more, a simple but comfortable place where those who accepted Iriya’s offer could stay for a few days or weeks at a time. Iriya’s eyes shone with excitement when she spoke of their coming _new friends_ , working side by side during the day and sharing hot meals and laughter and stories in the warmth of their home by evening. 

Inside the still-dark house, Azula slipped past the addition that was ready and waiting for its occupants and made her way silently to her own little corner. She wouldn’t be there to greet the first new arrivals later in the day.

Reaching under her cot, Azula pulled out the satchel she had packed the night before once Iriya was fast asleep, trying to ignore the guilt that pricked her. Iriya would have help and companionship, and she had every right to leave. Iriya even told her she _needed to get out more_ , hadn’t she?

_This isn’t what she meant, and you know it._

She had a few articles of clothing, a little money, a brush, a canteen. Enough food to comfortably get her to the nearest port town. A small tin of winter cherry to help calm her mind when she needed it. She was only missing one thing. 

Azula took down a small box from the shelf above her bed. When she opened it, she pushed the faceless doll aside, removed the worn letter she found at the bottom, and tucked it deep into her satchel.

Iriya once asked her why she held on to it. Obstinately, she suggested that maybe some part of her had not yet let go. A lie. She had no intention of _using_ the letter as she once meant to. 

Why then? She should have burned it long ago.

 _Maybe it began even earlier._ Maybe it began the first time she realized her family had given up searching for her. When she realized they let her go.

She’d gone to Laijee with Iriya several times after that first festival. The next year, in the summer, Iriya went to Hira’a for supplies, and Azula dared to go with her. While there, they discovered that the local acting troupe had finally found new management after Ursa and Ikem’s departure. There was a play that very evening. Iriya convinced her that they could attend together without worry. Azula could think of only one person in Hira’a who had ever gotten a good look at her years ago, Ursa’s friend, and that woman was part of the show. She sat in the crowded audience with Iriya with only a little worry for her obscurity and enjoyed the play well enough, though she was critical of the quality. No one so much as looked twice at her. Iriya, on the other hand, _did_ attract a few wary eyes. 

_They’re afraid of you_ , Azula had said, impressed.

 _They’re ridiculous_ , Iriya answered. _But better they stare at me than you_.

It had occurred to her all at once then. There were no more companies of soldiers sweeping through the villages. There were no whispers of a fugitive princess. No more posters with her face plastered on them. The last one she’d seen in Laijee had been rolled into the mud under the wheel of a passing cart. She’d passed herself off as a commoner successfully. She was nobody, now. She was safe. Forgotten.

She said as much to Iriya on their way home from Hira’a. 

_Well, that’s good, isn’t it?_ Iriya asked. _Isn’t that what we wanted?_

 _Of course,_ she replied.

Of course.

Azula strapped her satchel over her shoulder and across her chest and crept softly over to the table. She knelt down and scrawled out a note in the first light of morning that was peeking through the window.

_I’m alright. Please don’t worry. I’ll come home again._

It wasn’t a lie, but it was a promise she had no way of knowing that she could keep. Mizek jumped on the table, purring as he rubbed up against Azula’s arm. She set her instrument aside and took a moment to scratch him behind the ears and under his chin. She left the note on the table.

At the door, she slipped her shoes back on and stopped to look behind her, memorizing the interior of the little house. Her refuge. She spared a moment to watch Iriya as she slept across the room, her soft snoring a comforting sound. Azula swallowed the lump that formed in her throat, banished the guilt that threatened to make her stay, and forced herself to walk out into the dew-drenched morning.

The need driving her away from her security was present long before she ever set foot in the house, she realized then. Iriya’s home was a respite from the chaos that almost consumed her. It had saved her life. Iriya saved her life. Yet while her family let her go, the past still gripped her by the throat and chained her arms behind her back, enveloped her in a strangling hold like the embrace of a straitjacket.

She might be able to hide in her refuge forever, but if she did, she would never be free.

* * *

  
  


**Present**

  
  


Kyeph’s shop was already busy by the time Azula reached the market shortly after dawn. She had to push her way past the people crowding around the fruit stand outside, picking through the various seasonal options.

“ _Excuse you_!” a middle-aged man in a straw hat huffed at her. “There’s a line.”

“I’m not here to _shop_ ,” Azula snapped. 

“Oh, Mura!” 

Kyeph waved from behind the stand where she was collecting money from paying customers, and Azula cast a snide look at the man who had spoken to her before she made her way back to the shop’s owner.

She greeted the woman with a nod. “Any work today?”

Kyeph shook her head. “Afraid not. My aunt is working today, and the new produce isn’t coming in ‘til the end of the week.”

Azula sighed. A delivery from Kyeph’s family’s orchard the Agrarian Zone would have meant a good day for her. There was always work then, unloading the new and offloading the old. 

“It’s fine,” she answered, trying to ignore the bite of hunger. Theft might as well have been her first option, risky though it was. 

Kyeph dumped a handful of coins into the purse at her waist and took a moment to really look at Azula then.

“Have you eaten today?” she asked with a raised brow. Azula did not answer immediately, and the woman inclined her head toward the doorway to the shop. “You know what, go get yourself something. You can run an errand for me when you’re done. And maybe keep an eye on the boys for a little while? I’ve had to shout at them twice already this morning.”

“Alright,” Azula agreed with a nod. It was better than nothing. 

She stepped past several patrons crowding the stand and into the coolness of the shop. The lower floor contained crates of fruit and empty space for the outdoor stand to be brought in and locked away safely at night. Picking through one of the nearest crates, Azula dropped a few small apples into her satchel before she took the staircase to the living quarters on the upper floor and made her way into Kyeph’s kitchen. The woman was somehow never without sweet rolls. She took two and did not even stop to consider warming them before she devoured the first. She took the time to savor the second while she got herself a cup of water and refilled her canteen, then she took the opportunity to wash the wound on her hand. A handful of lychees from a bowl on Kyeph’s table were too tempting to ignore before she made her way back out of the apartment and down the stairs. She peeled the little fruits one at a time, saving the seeds in her pocket out of habit after she ate the flesh. It made her think of Iriya again. She missed her, and while Kyeph was no Iriya, the woman’s generosity did remind her of Iriya in a way. Perhaps that was why she’d gravitated toward her when she’d first arrived in the city and found herself desperately in need of money. 

Outside of the shop again, Azula found Kyeph discreetly counting coins while there was a lull in the usual morning business. 

“Thanks,” Azula said as she peeled her last lychee. 

Kyeph smiled over at her. “Can’t ask you to run errands on an empty stomach,” she replied with a shrug.

“Where are the boys?” she asked after she swallowed the last bit of fruit and dropped the seed into her pocket. 

“In the back. I haven’t heard anyone scream in a while, so I’m assuming they’re alright for now,” Kyeph said with a grimace. “Here.” She dropped the handful of coins she held into a smaller leather purse, then held it out to Azula. “Herbs for that tea you made me last week?” she requested with a smile. “That should be more than enough. When you get back you can check on the boys.”

Azula agreed. 

She took the purse and wound the strings around the fingers of her good hand, clutching it tightly in her palm. She’d learned a hard lesson about keeping anything of value in her pockets on her first day in Ba Sing Se. Fortunately the thief had only made off with some coin, not her letter or passport. Still, the lesson had been costly enough. She learned more from it than simply how to protect herself in the future. She figured out how to spot the petty thieves who targeted pockets and purses, then she watched them until she could replicate the practice. She’d only done it a handful of times, not wishing to risk a needless run-in with the authorities. It was enough to get her by on the days when she couldn’t earn her keep, and she quickly graduated to more daring acts of thievery. The yellow dress folded in her satchel was the height of her accomplishments, and she was counting on it fetching a good price when the time came to sell it.

Winding her way toward the other end of the market, Azula found Kyeph’s favorite herbalist shop and stopped outside. She could just walk away and count it an easy win for the day. Kyeph had no idea where she was staying. She didn’t need to ever see her again. A woman her age should know better than to trust a purse full of coins to a stranger she’d barely known for a few meager weeks, anyway. Maybe it was her turn to learn a lesson.

Azula _almost_ walked away, but she thought of Iriya again. Iriya would never need to know _everything_ she had done in her travels, and yet...

She walked into the shop with a sigh, annoyed with herself as much as with the version of Iriya in her mind who was disappointed in her for stealing from a widowed mother who had trusted her. _You’re pathetic_. 

She remembered those words, from her own mouth, directed at her brother as he fretted over his supposed inability to determine right from wrong. What happened to her?

“Good morning! The usual?”

The herbalist who greeted her was an elderly man with a long mustache and a warm smile. He seemed to remember her from her prior visits and, when she confirmed, asked her to remind him what her usual order was. He set about gathering and packaging the ingredients as Azula listed them off from memory, and when she paid for the herbs, he noticed her wounded hand.

“Do you have something for that?” the man asked, his shaggy brows furrowing.

“It’s fine,” Azula replied quickly. 

“Wait,” the man said, holding up a finger. He tottered back over to one of his shelves, opened a box, and picked a few long green leaves out, wrapping them in a piece of linen.

“I can’t pay for that,” Azula protested, knowing Kyeph would count her coin.

“Consider it a gift for a new loyal customer,” the old man replied with a toothy grin “Besides, it’s only ribwort, nothing very special,” he added when she seemed reluctant to take it. 

She took it without mentioning that this would be the last time she ever set foot in his shop and bid him a good day as she left. She was leaving by the end of the week, one way or another. 

When she returned to Kyeph’s shop, she handed over the change purse and went back up to the apartment to put away the purchases. She took the opportunity to finish tending to the gash on her palm with crushed ribwort leaves laid over the injury and wrapped tightly in torn strips of the linen.

Satisfied that she had done everything she could to stave off an infection, Azula went to find Huan and Luhan. The twins were always easy enough to find.

“ _Let go of me!_ ”

Luhan’s whinging made Azula wince before she even stepped into the little yard behind the building. The space was completely enclosed with buildings on all sides, the only access to it through Kyeph’s home. _A pen for wild animals_ , she once joked about her sons in exasperation. 

Around ten years old, the twins were nearly identical but for the fact that Huan was the taller and stronger of the two. He never let Luhan forget it. 

Stepping into the bare and dusty yard, Azula found Luhan trapped in a headlock, kicking ineffectively at his brother in a sad attempt to free himself. Huan was grinning triumphantly as he kept his brother locked into submission.

“You’re never going to get out that way,” Azula remarked critically as she leaned back against the door frame, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Hi, Mura,” Huan greeted her with a grin, clearly thrilled to have a spectator for his victory.

“Get him off me!” Luhan begged, his face bright red from his struggles. “I’m telling Mom!”

“No, you’re not,” Azula corrected him. “You’re going to learn how to defend yourself.”

Huan frowned. 

Pushing herself off the wall, Azula approached the boys. She took Luhan’s flailing left arm and brought it forward, placing it against the side of his brother’s head. 

“Get your left leg behind his right,” she directed.

“Hey!” Huan protested.

Luhan did as he was told. 

“Now straighten up and shove him backward.”

It took more than one try, but eventually Luhan succeeded, freeing himself by tripping his brother over his leg and sending him tumbling backwards into a heap on the ground. He jumped in the air and cheered for himself.

“See?” Azula finished her instruction with a recommendation and a faint smirk. “Don’t be a snitch. Fight back.”

“You’re a jerk,” Huan complained as he stood up and dusted himself off. “I don’t like you anymore.”

“No she’s not, she’s the best,” Luhan cut in. “You’re just mad that I beat you.”

“No you didn’t!” Huan argued, shoving his brother. “You needed to be helped by _a girl_.”

“I’m going to knock your heads together if you don’t cut it out and shut up,” Azula threatened. Their relentless bickering did her lingering headache no favors. “What are you, ten? You’re too old to be acting like this.”

“It’s not _me_ , it’s _him_ ,” Luhan protested. “He’s a bully.”

“And you’re a crybaby,” Huan taunted.

“What did I _just say?_ ” Azula demanded. Something in her tone must have finally made them reconsider their behavior. 

“You’re not my mom.I don’t have to listen to you!” Practically pouting, Huan pushed past Azula and stomped off through the doorway. 

“Sorry we made you mad,” Luhan said once his brother was gone. “But he does this all the time. I hate him.”

Azula pivoted to look at the little boy. His voice was sad, and his eyes were sadder. The expression on his face was hauntingly familiar, and it almost made her despise the child. Almost.

“I don’t want an apology,” she said with a sigh. “I want you to learn how to protect yourself.”

“Can you teach me more?” he asked hopefully.

“I suppose,” she agreed. If it was the last time she would ever see the child, the least she could do was leave him with a useful lesson and the ability to throw a halfway decent punch.

  
  
A few hours and bruises later, Kyeph appeared in the doorway and watched them for a moment.

“My aunt is here, Mura. I’m taking a break. Would you mind fixing me some of that tea now? Luhan, go play with your brother.” 

“I don’t want to,” the boy grumbled. 

“There’s a game going on in the alley,” Kyeph enticed him.

It did the trick. Luhan seemed to forget all about the strife with his brother as he ran to join the children on the street who always took over the alleys for their afternoon games. 

“See you later, Mura!” Luhan called over his shoulder with a wave. 

“Come on upstairs,” Kyeph prompted, waving for Azula to follow her.

She followed the woman inside the building and back up the stairs to her apartment and set about fixing the requested tea. Kyeph settled herself down on a low couch with a tired sigh. 

“Do you know why Huan was sulking up here earlier?” Kyeph asked as she rubbed her knees.

“He was upset that I showed Luhan how to break out of one of his holds,” Azula answered, crushing a concoction of the herbs she’d bought.

Kyeph rolled her eyes. “Well, he got over it as soon as I told him his friends were starting a game outside. I don’t know what I’m going to do with those two. It seems like they get worse the older they get, not better.”

“They’re siblings. Siblings fight,” Azula reasoned with a shrug. “It could be worse.”

“I suppose,” the woman answered. “I just can’t help but to think that things wouldn’t be like this if they had their father.”

Azula caught herself before she laughed. “Depends on the father,” she countered.

Kyeph looked at her curiously then. “True,” she agreed. “My husband was a good man. He would have been a wonderful father.”

Her dead husband. She’d mentioned him before. A merchant turned soldier, unfortunate enough to have enlisted just in time to be sent to the front lines during the siege of the city. He never got the chance to meet his children.

“We’re fortunate that he had his family’s orchard and this little shop to keep us going without him,” Kyeph went on when Azula said nothing. “I don’t know where we’d be otherwise.”

“In the street camps or the worst of the slums, I would imagine,” Azula remarked as she placed two cups and the pot of tea on a tray.

“I didn’t mean that quite so literally, but yes, that’s probably true,” Kyeph replied. “That’s why I try to do what I can for those who are worse off than us, but it doesn’t feel like it’s nearly enough. And it doesn’t seem to be doing my boys any good either,” she added with a grimace. “I hoped it might teach them a little gratitude and compassion, Huan especially. But there just aren’t enough hours in the day. I feel as though I can’t keep this place running and keep a roof over our heads _and_ be a good mother all at once.” 

“You’re doing the best you can,” she said. She didn’t even know if it was true, but it felt like the right thing to say. 

_Darling, I failed you. I’m so sorry._

Azula clenched her jaw as she placed the tray down on the table, willing the memory of her own mother and that fateful night in Hira’a away. The faintest tremor threatened her hands as she poured Kyeph a steaming cup of the special blend she’d learned from Iriya, meant for calming both mind and body. She poured one for herself as well before she sat down on a cushion. She couldn’t lose control of herself, not here, not like this. With both hands around the cup, she stared down into the liquid and focused on pulling enough heat away from it that she could take an impolitely lengthy gulp without scalding her throat. 

“At least there’s this to take the edge off,” Kyeph commented dryly. She brought the cup up toward her nose and breathed in the scent. “Like a gift from the spirits themselves,” she said with a smile. “Who taught you how to make this?”

Azula quietly inhaled a steadying breath.

“My mother,” she replied evenly. It was true, in a sense.

“You know I just realized that you know so much about me, but I know so little about you,” Kyeph said after she took a long, slow sip of her tea. “I only know that you’re from… what did you say, again? Yu Dao?”

Azula nodded, confirming another of her lies that held a sliver of truth. She _had_ come from Yu Dao before she made it to Ba Sing Se.

“Yes, but it doesn’t matter. There’s nothing much to know, and I’m not going to be here for much longer anyway.”

“Oh?” Kyeph tilted her head. “Going somewhere?”

“Away from here,” she replied shortly.

“I’m sorry to hear that. The boys will miss you. _I’ll_ miss you. You can move twice the amount of produce in half the amount of time as my aunt can,” Kyeph laughed. “And you’re good with the boys. I wish I could afford to keep you around at least to keep them out of my hair every day.”

“Actually, there’s something I wanted to ask you, now that you’ve brought it up,” Azula hedged.

“Go on,” Kyeph encouraged with a nod before she sipped her tea again.

Azula took another lengthy sip of her tea and set the cup down. She decided to be direct and looked Kyeph squarely in the eyes to prove it.

“I need a smuggler. And I know you're familiar with that business.”

Kyeph almost choked on her tea, and her eyes widened as she set her cup down as well. “ _What are you talking about?_ ” she demanded. “What put an idea like that into your head?”

“There’s no point lying to me, Kyeph,” Azula challenged her. “I’ve been around for weeks. I’ve watched you. I know you’re not keeping a roof over your heads with _only_ your fruit. You’re selling things that didn’t come from your family’s orchard.”

“Are you…threatening me?” Kyeph demanded, suddenly very pale. “After I invited you into my home? Gave you work? Food? Entrusted my sons-”

“ _Please_ ,” Azula scoffed, cutting her off. “I’m not threatening you. I’m making an observation -an accurate one, if your reaction says anything about it- and I’m asking you for help. I have no intention of running to the authorities over some petty contraband or whatever you think I intended to do.”

Kyeph frowned, her gaze narrowed mistrustfully. “I’m not doing anything wrong,” she asserted. “Illegal, maybe, but not wrong.”

“I never implied that you were,” Azula answered as patiently as she could, annoyed with the woman's defensiveness. “You’re doing what you have to to survive. I understand that. I’m asking you to help me do the same.”

With her lips pressed together, Kyeph glanced toward the door of the apartment and the windows as well, as if she was afraid of being heard. 

“What kind of smuggler are you looking for?” she finally asked.

“The kind that can get me out of here and into somewhere else without asking questions,” Azula replied. 

Kyeph hesitated. “I don’t work with anyone who smuggles _people_ ,” she admitted. “But I know of someone. What did you _do_ that you need to get yourself smuggled out of here anyway?”

“I didn’t do anything. It’s not the out part that’s the problem,” Azula retorted. _At least not yet, anyway._ “It’s the in that I’m more concerned with.” It was the most she could offer without telling the woman far too much. 

Kyeph sighed. “You want Gamuo. He’s the owner of a small shipping company and captain of a steamship. Operates out of Chameleon Bay.”

“Price?” she asked.

“Depends on where you’re going,” Kyeph answered. “I can assure you it isn’t cheap though.”

Azula tapped her fingertips against the side of her cup as she considered that. “How do I find him?” she finally asked. 

“The fish market three blocks east of here. The Blue Eel. If Gamuo isn't there, someone there will know how to help you reach him. If you prove that you can pay, they'll probably transport you to Chameleon Bay and get you on a ship.”

Calculating everything that could possibly go wrong with her barely-formed plan, Azula grimaced. She didn’t like the odds, but it was too late to turn back now. She’d brought herself this far. Her faith in destiny had long since been beaten out of her, but there was a certain sense of fate to the events that befell her since she decided to leave home.

Or maybe she was simply mad after all, stumbling from day to day making rash decisions and deceiving herself into believing she had any sort of control. That she could still formulate a plan and bring it into fruition with the sheer force of her will. That she could do anything at all about the past.

She was a fool, but it was freeing in its own strange way. Some days she felt almost like a child again, like the child she had been before she learned to control everything and everyone around her, and herself most of all. She could still remember what it felt like to be so small and headstrong and careless. Before she understood the consequences. 

“I suppose I’m going to need a job then,” Azula finally mused aloud.

Kyeph watched her, and there was a coldness to her gaze that hadn’t been there before. “I suppose so. Wish I could help you, but…” she lifted her shoulders. 

That was a lie. Azula smiled wryly.

“You’ve done enough. I do appreciate your cooperation,” she added. 

Kyeph nodded. “I owe you for today,” she stated. “Give me a moment.” 

She stood up and left the room, returning a few moments later with her change purse. She counted out a stack of coins and dropped it into Azula’s waiting hand. Then she added two more. 

“For your discretion,” Kyeph said, meeting Azula’s gaze with a hardened edge to hers. Any sense of camaraderie between them had been destroyed, but it didn’t matter.

Azula tucked the payment into her satchel, curious as to Kyeph’s choice to pay her off for her silence. She hadn’t even threatened her, and she’d made herself equally vulnerable by the very act of revealing her need for a smuggler. 

Footsteps came charging up the stairs then, and the twins pushed into the room noisily. _That_ was it, she realized. Kyeph had a home and a livelihood to protect. She had her children. Azula had nothing to lose but her freedom, or whatever passed for it.

“We beat you fair and square. Your team just can't kick a ball for-”

“ _Boys_ ,” Kyeph scolded, cutting off their argument before it could escalate. “Mura is leaving, and she’s not going to be coming around anymore. Say goodbye.”

Huan crossed his arms over his chest and stared at her, clearly not over her imagined betrayal earlier in the day. Luhan’s mouth popped open.

“What? _Why?_ ” he demanded. 

“It’s time for me to move on is all,” Azula replied with a shrug as she stood up. 

Luhan frowned, and Azula stopped beside him as she headed toward the door.

“Don’t forget. Whole body, not just the arm,” she reminded him. Luhan nodded solemnly, as if the simple advice was a profound wisdom. Azula turned her attention to Huan then. “And you. Hate me all you want, but I did you a favor.”

Huan simply glared at her. She wanted to tell him to find someone bigger than him, someone who was a match for him to pick on and take out his rage on, but Kyeph’s presence made her hold her tongue. She wanted to tell him to cherish his brother before it was too late, but she couldn't form the words. Perhaps someday he would understand. 

Azula didn’t spare a glance behind her as she left the apartment and descended the stairs back into the streets of Ba Sing Se.

She wandered through the dust and the crowds for a while, eating one of the apples she’d stowed away as she contemplated her plan. She _could_ retrace her steps. Leave Ba Sing Se the way she came, go back over a thousand of miles of Earth Kingdom territory and through the colonies - _former_ colonies- and Yu Dao and try to make her way back from there. But it could take months. She had neither the time nor the patience to make that trek again. She might lose her nerve if she gave herself too much time to think it through. She would almost certainly be too late.

Not for the first time, she questioned her motives and her very sanity. Lying to herself had once come as easily as lying to anyone else, but it became increasingly difficult somewhere through the passing years. 

When she stepped off a ship from the Fire Nation half a year earlier onto newly returned Earth Kingdom soil, she told herself she was seeking the cracks in the world Zuko and the Avatar were building together. Looking for weaknesses to exploit. That was a lie. Of weaknesses, she’d found plenty. The _former_ colonies were struggling if not utterly miserable. Yu Dao was a mess of social unrest despite the tentative peace that had supposedly been achieved there. If she wished to harm her brother or her enemies, former or otherwise, she could hardly have hoped for a better place to do it than Yu Dao. 

But that was never what drew her there. She could only admit the truth to herself when she’d caught sight of a gold-adorned head and imagined it was the Fire Lord’s crown. Her heart raced, and she tried to pass it off as _only_ fear. It wasn’t. For just a moment, she thought she might catch a glimpse of her brother in the crowd and see his face one more time before melting safely into the shadows of obscurity. Her hopes crashed when she realized it was only an ostentatiously wealthy Fire National, and she couldn’t lie to herself any longer. 

Her family had stopped searching for her, and she’d begun searching for them. That was the truth. The pathetic, lonely truth.

She considered all of the times Iriya tried to suggest that she reach out to them. How gently she’d tried to convince her that her fears for her freedom might be unfounded. Yet she would never hear a word of it. Because she _was_ afraid. 

She remembered mocking the fear her mother expressed the night they reunited in Hira’a. She remembered desperately trying to convince Zuko that she was a liar. _Who would fear their own children?_ _Their own family?_ Like so many other things, the irony would be wickedly funny if it weren’t so wretched. This was Ozai’s legacy. Fear and mistrust and ultimately, separation. 

At least Zuko and Ursa had found one another. Azula thought she could be content with merely a glimpse at a familiar face or a peek into the lives they now lived from the safety of her anonymity within the teeming crowds of commoners, but Yu Dao didn’t afford her that. It had always been a desperately foolish hope. 

Her time there was not entirely fruitless, however. The city _did_ give her more information than she could have anticipated. She’d been unexpectedly delighted when, preparing to drink herself into oblivion in a shabby tavern as the futility of her search set in, she overheard a chatty patron mention a metalbending academy outside of the city. It took her mere seconds to remember why that piqued her interest. The obnoxious Water Tribe boy, Sokka, first mentioned such a thing in her presence years ago, and the man in the tavern proved equally as loose-lipped when she struck up a conversation with him about it. Nothing could have prepared her for the discovery that the Avatar’s blind friend had taken property from _Master Kunyo_ , of all people, and converted it for her own use. However indifferent she might be toward the little earthbender, the girl was certainly more deserving than her idiot of a former master, and she’d laughed so uproariously at the story that the man relating it must have thought her drunk already. It was the only moment of true levity she experienced since she left Iriya.

Still, the earthbender’s presence near the city ultimately meant nothing. Zuko wasn't there. Azula soon after took advantage of Yu Dao’s robust black market and acquired a passport for use in Ba Sing Se. It was the only other place beyond the danger of the Fire Nation capital that she imagined she might find the faces she sought. 

Ba Sing Se _,_ the _Impenetrable City._ Poked full of holes and bleeding out. Rotting alive. It was an awful place, but even in all of its revolting filth and strife and misery, it had given her a gift in the form of the Jasmine Dragon. She’d tried lying to herself there too. Tried to convince herself that it was _only_ her hatred for her uncle that drove her to thieve and buy and sneak her way into the Upper Ring. That she wanted to toy with the temptation to destroy his sanctuary. It was a half truth. The other half was that, despite her hatred, despite the Jasmine Dragon’s location on the other side of the world, it was the closest place she could reach that felt like _home_. Her real home. Somehow, even seeing Iroh and despising him with everything in her being connected her to her family and comforted her. It was twisted, but it was the whole truth.

And now the city had given her one more gift, a mere scrap of a chance to right even one of her wrongs. 

_There is no righting your wrongs._

That was the ugly truth, too. There was no fixing what she had done. There was no turning back time. But she could do _something._

She could try.


	19. Chapter 19

Situated at the edge of one of the Lower Ring’s busiest fish markets, the Blue Eel was utterly unremarkable. Azula picked her way past seemingly endless shops and stalls in order to find it, vendors hawking everything from smoked and dried fish meat ready to be eaten to piles of dead-eyed creatures laid out on blocks of ice to bloody slabs of hacked up scaly bodies being wrapped in paper and handed off to paying customers. The Blue Eel was quiet compared to the rest of the market, with a mere handful of patrons sitting at the tables within the establishment minding their own business as they devoured their meals.

“Table, miss?” a seemingly bored young woman intoned mere moments after Azula stepped inside.

“No,” Azula replied, pivoting to face the woman as she approached. “I’m looking for someone.”

The woman waved disinterestedly at the rest of the customers. “Go on then. I’ll bring a cup for-”

“I’m not looking for another customer,” Azula cut her off. “I’m looking for Gamuo. I was told I could find him here.”

The woman blinked, suddenly appearing much more alert. She looked around cautiously, then narrowed her gaze at Azula. 

“Who’s asking for him?” she demanded. 

_I am, you idiot._

“A paying customer, hopefully,” Azula answered patiently. 

The woman’s gaze darted around the room again. “Wait here,” she instructed. Then she scurried off past the rest of the tables in the dining area and the entrance to a kitchen and into a back room, drawing a curtain closed behind her. She returned moments later, still watching Azula warily but seemingly less nervous.

“Come with me, please,” she instructed with a wave once she was close enough to speak to Azula softly.

Azula followed the woman through the hall and past the curtain into the back room, where she found herself facing a small, wiry man seated behind a desk. He was writing in a large book, which he closed the moment Azula entered, and he set his instrument aside to gaze up at her through his glasses. _Definitely not Gamuo._

“Hello,” the man offered mildly. “I heard you’re looking for Gamuo. I’m afraid he’s not available at present.”

“Not available or not here?” Azula inquired with a lifted brow.

“Not here,” the man amended. 

“Well where can I find him?” she demanded impatiently.

“At sea. We’re expecting him back in two days,” the man offered.

Azula pressed her lips together, studying the man. “You’re clearly an associate of his, so I assume you have the authority to deal with potential customers yourself,” she finally stated.

The man smiled faintly. “I do.”

“ _Well?_ ”

The man sat back and observed her calmly. “Frankly, you don’t look like a potential customer.” His nose twitched as he spoke, and he didn’t try to hide the way his gaze swept over her critically.

Azula narrowed her eyes. She knew she looked as poor and unkept as any pauper on the streets. Perhaps she ought to have donned her dress and done up her face and hair as if she were visiting the Upper Ring before she embarked on her errand, but doing so would make her look equally out of place in the Lower Ring. And made her look like an easy target.

“Frankly, you look like a mouse in spectacles. But I assume you’re a competent man deserving of my business despite your appearance. You could try extending the same courtesy.”

The little man actually chuckled and leaned forward again, resting his elbows on his desk and folding his hands. “Fair enough. So, what is it exactly you need?”

“I need to get out of here by the end of the week.”

“Destination?”

“The Fire Nation. Capital City.”

The man raised both scrawny brows. “Not a request we receive often. But we _do_ trade with the Fire Nation capital.” He tapped his fingertips against the table as he considered her. “Are you…how can I put this… in any manner of trouble with the authorities?”

“I was assured you don’t ask questions,” Azula scoffed. “But no, I’m not.”

“We don’t ask personal questions, but we _do_ ask pertinent ones. That was a pertinent question.” He pushed his glasses further up his nose. “Anyhow, that will not be a cheap trip.”

“What do you charge?” Azula asked.

“What can you pay?” the man countered. 

Reluctantly, knowing it would be nowhere near enough, Azula pulled out the purse containing her payment from Kyeph and set it on the desk between them. “That’s not everything,” she asserted. “I’m going to find work for a few days. And I have some things of value to sell.” _And I’ll steal, if I have to_.

The man’s nose twitched again as he gingerly opened the purse and counted the coin within. “This is nowhere near enough,” he replied, blinking up at her through his glasses.

“I believe I _just said_ I have the means to pay more,” Azula snapped.

“It will be at least five times this for Gamuo to even consider you as a customer,” the man explained. “A few days of work might help but certainly won’t cut it. What do you have of value?”

“An expensive article of clothing,” Azula offered, clenching her jaw. “And _this_.” She reached into her satchel and pulled out her passport, pushing it across the table toward the man.

He picked up the passport and held it up toward the light, examining it. “Hm. Middle Ring. Not bad. Why would you sell your passport?” he queried. “No intention of ever coming back?”

Azula folded her arms across her chest and waited. 

“ _Oh_ ,” he finally said. “It’s not yours. Of course,” he added with a laugh. “Stupid of me. So who is…Wiyen Bo?”

She simply shrugged in response.

“Where did you get this?” the man pushed. 

“A _merchant_ in Yu Dao,” she answered. 

“How much did you pay for it?” 

“I didn’t.”

The man glanced at her curiously. She _had_ paid for it, in a way. She found a black market dealer in Yu Dao when it was time to move on, and she’d used a good deal of what precious little money she had to purchase herbs to make the man a remedy for an ailing stomach in exchange for a passport. They’d had a deal. When she delivered her end of it, the man laughed at her, claiming there was no way a potion would pay for a coveted passport and that she was stupid for not realizing it. He took her medicine anyway and ordered her out, threatening her with two pathetic hired guards. Not wishing to cause a scene, she left. But she found him later, on his way home at night, and left his guards unconscious in an alley. Then she relieved him of one of his precious passports and gifted him a few broken ribs to help take his mind off of the pain in his stomach.

“It’s _not cheap_. I needn’t have paid for it myself to know that,” Azula added. “I’m sure you know it too.”

“I do,” the man agreed. “Well, if you’re willing to part with it and you think you can make up the rest by the end of the week,” he shrugged. “Come back in four days. Crack of dawn. We’ll get you to the bay, but whether or not you get on a ship depends on Gamuo.”

“Fine,” Azula agreed with a curt nod. She collected the contents of her purse from his desk and turned toward the door.

“Gamuo usually appreciates at least having a name,” the man called out to her before she left.

Azula halted and glanced over her shoulder. “Mura.”

“Very well, Mura. We’ll expect you in four days. Crack of dawn. Don’t be late.”

  
  
  


* * *

  
  


“Incoming!”

Azula scowled as someone passing by topped off her stack of dirty pots with one more that needed cleaning. She pivoted in time to catch the sheepish grin the boy offered her before he dashed off back to his end of the kitchen. 

“ _Spirits!_ Get a move on!” one of the cooks griped at her when he noticed that she’d stopped scrubbing for mere seconds.

She stifled the urge to make the flames the cook was working over jump just a little bit higher. Her mood was as dark as the charred meat the fool was burning and likely just as foul, but it wasn’t really his fault. The man was under as much pressure as everyone else in the place and likely feared for his job. 

_You work hard and fast. You don’t fool around and you don’t fuck anything up, or you’re out on your ass and I don’t care if you starve._ Such was the extent of the instruction she’d received from Sheng, the restaurant’s owner, when she took the job immediately after he’d fired his last dishwasher. 

_Just one more day_. Azula repeated it like a mantra in her mind, determined to stick it out as planned and get what she needed. The temptation to take off her soiled apron, throw it in Sheng’s ugly face and go find a purse or two to snatch was strong. She considered the potential risks against the reward of simply breaking into the man’s office after hours and melting the lock off his safe box. She knew the business did well enough for an eatery at the Middle Ring’s outer edge.

It was too great a risk to be worth it. She hadn’t come this far to end up in a confrontation with the Dai Li, though as she scrubbed away at a pot she found herself distracted contemplating how many of them she could take down before she was overpowered. Her skills had only grown over the years, and she couldn’t even begin to quantify how much time she had spent practicing, experimenting, _perfecting._ Yet she had barely been able to bend at all in the months that she’d roamed the Earth Kingdom, and it was to her detriment. Mentally more than anything, though she was certain her skills would need refinement again after such a long stretch of disuse. _Not as bad as being locked away for a year. Confined in a straitjacket for months with no relief_ _but to breathe fire_.

Azula pushed the hideous memories aside, before they could make her question what she was doing and why she was doing it. But she scrubbed at the pot so hard that she almost thought the metal could peel under her force.

“Woah, easy there. I think that one’s good.”

The boy with the stupid grin approached holding out a clean rag, and Azula barely spared him a glance as she finished rinsing the pot clean and shoved it into his hands. She didn’t miss the way he raised his brows before he walked away, though she couldn't care less what he or anyone else thought of her. She wasn’t there to make friends. 

_Just one more day_.

Azula grabbed the pot atop her pile and attacked it with the same vigor, hating everything about the job all the while. It wasn’t work itself that she loathed. She could spend hours upon hours plowing a field and planting melons, beans, tomato-carrots, yams, leeks- all to feed herself and Iriya or sell in exchange for staples like rice and flour. She could gather herbs until her back ached and her fingers were raw and spend days bundling, drying, packing, or otherwise preparing them for a specific use, knowing the work was the only path to necessary medicines. She could saw planks of wood until her muscles trembled from the exertion if it made Iriya smile with excitement over the expansion of their home and the opportunities that came with it. She could haul heavy sacks of feed and even shovel manure if it meant sparing Iriya’s back and keeping their animals properly cared for. She discovered dignity in that sort of work, much to her shock. As much dignity as in the childhood she spent in a prestigious academy and in the royal halls, poring over books of strategy and ancient battles until she could barely keep her eyes open or training in her bending until her legs threatened to give out under her.

But _this_ work… there was nothing but humiliation in it. Subjecting herself to being shouted at and ordered about, reduced to a worthless drudge by some pompous Middle Ring lout who paid a pittance for their labor. It was degrading. It had been merely two days, and she could hardly stand it. 

_Just one more day_ , and she would be gone. She couldn’t imagine how everyone else in the place could live that way. Indefinitely. Likely for their entire lives. She pitied them. 

That was shocking too. Azula never knew she had the capacity to look at people of such lowly stations and actually feel sorry for them. She’d always known -always _believed_ \- that one’s lot in life was justly determined by fate. _An easy thing to believe when you’re born at the top of the world_.

It made sense, in a way. Forced to live among them, to live like them… it would be difficult not to feel for them. She was equally surprised to discover that, taken as a whole, she even _liked_ common people more than she had ever liked the grasping, duplicitous nobility she had been raised with… which was not at all. The commoners could be just as grasping and untrustworthy, but at least they were driven by need and desperation. There was no limit to the greed of the nobility, and their need was nonexistent.

“I’m leaving for an hour. I expect everything to still be running smoothly when I return, _or else_.”

Azula hadn’t even noticed Sheng stepping into the kitchen. She glanced over her shoulder to find him standing in the doorway with his arms crossed over his chest, surveying them with an expression on his face that could incite her to blast him with a bolt of lightning. She clearly wasn’t the only one. The boy who had spoken to her on occasion was standing just behind Sheng, mocking him with his arms crossed over his chest and mimicking his threats with an exaggerated expression as he waited to move past the man into the kitchen. If anyone else in the kitchen noticed, they did not show it. Azula could almost have smiled if her mood was not so sour. She suddenly wondered how many times in her own life, in a different time, her servants might have relieved their hatred of her behind her back with similar mocking. Maybe they wouldn’t have even dared, but they surely would have felt the same. An uncomfortable feeling settled in the pit of Azula’s stomach, and it destroyed any possibility of her finding humor in the boy’s actions. She’d been harsh and domineering with her servants even as a little girl, she knew that. But at least she’d been royalty, someone with _real_ power at her disposal, not some middle-aged Middle Ring nobody who built his ego on the backs of a handful of peasants.

 _As if that makes it better_.

With Sheng gone, the workers noticeably relaxed, if only a little. They kept the establishment flowing nearly seamlessly through the end of their busiest hour while managing to converse and even joke with one another. Azula did not participate, but she was struck by just how unnecessary a man like Sheng was to the entire operation. He contributed nothing yet reaped all the rewards. 

“Copper for your thoughts?”

The boy was at her side again, holding out his hands and a towel for the last cleaned pot. Azula glanced at him and quirked a brow. She wasn’t in a talkative mood, but there was no particular reason to be rude.

“I was just thinking that if this place was a military operation, I would cut Sheng off as dead weight to maximize efficiency,” Azula replied as she handed off the pot.

The boy laughed. “Wow. Not what I expected, but okay. Can’t argue with you there,” he said as he dried the pot and passed it off to one of the cooks.

“You owe me a copper,” Azula asserted.

The boy's brows shot upward. “I wasn’t…you know that’s just an expression, right?”

“It’s a pretty stupid thing to say if you don’t intend to follow through,” Azula retorted as she carefully dried her hands with her own towel, mindful of the scabbed-over gash on her palm. “Fortunately for you, I can do without your copper.”

One of the cooks snorted. “You’ll be singing a different tune when we get paid tomorrow.” 

Several other voices chimed in, grumbling about their wages and worrying for how they would pay their rents and feed their families.

“Why do you put up with it?” Azula blurted out before she could stop herself.

The kitchen momentarily fell silent. Everyone stopped their tasks to stare at her. She hadn’t meant to draw their attention, but since she had it, she might as well try to satisfy her curiosity.

“Why do we put up with _what?_ ” a woman asked. A server who had just stepped in from the dining space. 

“ _This_ ,” Azula answered, waving her hand in the air. “Allowing yourselves to be treated this way. Being paid so little to do so much.”

“What else are we supposed to do?” the boy asked.

“Something. Anything,” Azula replied. “There are more of you than there are of him.”

“More of _us_ , you mean,” the boy corrected her, cocking his head to the side as he looked at her curiously.

“Sure, us, whatever.”

“What do you think, we’re going to jump him in the street? Take what we deserve from him, and then what? Get ourselves hauled off to prison?” another cook scoffed.

“No need to get caught and imprisoned if you were smart enough about it,” she argued. “But I wasn’t thinking of attacking him in the street. You could just _stop working._ Force his hand.” 

“That’s ridiculous. We’d be fired immediately,” the boy pointed out. 

“ _All of you?_ Immediately?” Azula pushed, casting a skeptical glance the boy’s way. “There’s no way he could do that and keep this place running. He would have no choice but to bargain with you.”

Someone laughed. 

“You clearly have _no idea_ what things are like around here,” the first cook retorted, looking her over derisively. “Or you’re just a simpleton.”

“He’d have us replaced like _that_ ,” the boy chimed in again with a snap of his fingers. “Jobs are hard to come by, and there are always more than enough people waiting to take them.”

“Look at _you,_ ” the server pointed out with her hands on her hips. “You showed up here two days ago less than an hour after the last dishwasher was thrown out.” She grabbed a waiting tray and walked back into the dining area with a disgusted shake of her head.

“ _I know who you are_ ,” the first cook asserted, glaring at her.

Azula pivoted, her sharp gaze landing on the man’s face in alarm.

“You think because you have some grime under your fingernails you can hide the truth? It’s written all over you. The way you talk. The way you walk. Your stupid idealism. You’re not one of us,” the man spat. “What’s the story, hm? Runaway from the Upper Ring? Rich, spoiled brat trying to hurt Mommy and Daddy? Going through a little rebellious phase? Slumming it with the poor Lower Ring trash so you’ll have stories to tell all your rich, spoiled friends when you eventually go back? _But of course_ you’d take a job in the Middle Ring. You wouldn’t dare set foot in the places _we_ come from.”

“You have a lot of nerve,” Azula intoned quietly, but her words lacked any bite. She was too relieved.

The boy was looking between the two of them, wide-eyed and silent.

“Tell me I’m wrong,” the cook demanded, wiping his hands on his grease-spattered apron.

Azula pressed her lips together, considering him for a moment. “Alright, so you’ve got me. I’m a rich, spoiled Upper Ring brat. Running from an arranged marriage to a man twice my age. Happy now?”

The cook frowned, but he did not relent. “I knew it. And I don’t pity you, not for a second. A marriage to a rich man is a better fate than any Lower Ring girl could hope for.”

“Oh, well, lucky for me I didn’t _ask_ for your pity,” Azula shot back, playing into the role she’d created for herself.

“Are you two still wasting time with this nonsense?” the server complained as she hurried back into the kitchen with a tray full of dirty dishes. The dishes disappeared into the suds in front of Azula as the woman offloaded the dishes and scurried off to her next task with a warning. “Better get back to work, Sheng won’t hesitate to throw you out.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Azula grumbled. “I’m not going to be here much longer.”

“Ha!” The cook barked out a laugh as he waved the tongs in his hand. “Couldn’t even last a few days? Well, good. Go crawling back to your rich family and leave a job for someone who actually needs it.”

_Just one more day._

* * *

At the end of the third day, Azula’s feet were dragging and her entire body aching as she made her way past the wall that separated the Lower Ring from the rest of the city and back to the boarding house. The streets were alive despite the long-fallen darkness, and that was good. Acquiring the rest of what she needed depended on the accuracy of her observations of Fena. If she was wrong about the woman, she would need to find another buyer. Or another easy target.

The creaking of the boarding house's wooden stairs drew Fena out of her lair without fail, and this time Azula was not trying to avoid her.

“Hey! You’re due tomorrow, you hear me! You pay up or out you go!” the woman shouted at Azula as she appeared out of a dark doorway on the lower floor.

“I’m leaving tomorrow,” Azula asserted, pivoting with one foot still on the stairs. She waited.

Fena squinted at her in the dim lamplight. “Leaving, eh? Well good riddance. I won’t have any problem filling your room, and I don’t need sneaks like you around here anyway. I don’t know what sort of mischief you’ve been up to, but I don’t like it. Running around dressed up all fancy like you’re _somebody_ , then you show up looking like _this_ ,” she added, gesturing toward Azula with a derisive sneer. “I’ve seen dogs off the street look better.” 

Azula ignored the insult, offering the woman a placid smile. “Actually, now that you mention it, I was wondering if you might know anyone interested in buying a dress. I don’t need it any longer, and it’s in perfect condition.” 

Fena frowned, but her eyes lit up the same way they did every time she’d cast a greedy eye toward the dress when Azula wore it. It was a beautiful garment, but Fena didn’t care for beauty. She was a practical woman, someone who could smell a profit over the stench of the city with ease. Azula carefully pulled the dress from her satchel, smoothing it and holding it out for Fena to see. She could almost envision wheels spinning in the woman’s mind as she ran her fingers over the silk and the intricately embroidered edges of the material. 

“Why are you getting rid of it?” Fena asked suspiciously.

“I need money, why else?” Azula replied. “I wouldn’t part with it otherwise.”

“Hm. It’s been worn,” the woman remarked critically. 

“I would consider a discount for the right buyer,” Azula countered. 

Fena sniffled. “What do you want for it?”

“A month’s rent,” she answered promptly. It was less than she could potentially get for the garment if she spent days looking for a buyer, but it would be enough to buy her passage onto the smuggler’s ship with her passport and the pay from her work taken into account. No more theft required.

Fena made an impolite noise in the back of her throat. “That’s too much.”

“It’s less than what I could get for it elsewhere. Or what _you_ could get for it elsewhere. But if you don’t want it…” Azula shrugged and began to gingerly fold the dress again. 

“I didn’t say I don’t want it,” Fena protested, hands on her hips. 

“Well?” she pushed. “I haven’t got all night. Make up your mind.”

“Wait here,” Fena demanded with a scowl, as if she was being inconvenienced.

Azula exhaled a sigh of relief as the woman scurried off. She was getting out. She tried not to think about what came next. There would be time enough for that on her trip, and there was no room to second-guess herself until she was safely away from the city. Until it was too late to turn back. 

“Here,” Fena grumbled as she walked back into the hall and held out a purse of coins. Azula took it, and the woman kept her hand extended expectantly. 

“I’m going to count it first, Fena,” Azula replied, her tone saccharine though her lips twisted scornfully.

She took her time and ignored the woman’s muttering and griping. Once satisfied that she wasn’t being cheated, she tucked the purse into her satchel. Fena pressed her lips together, and her eyes darted toward the dress nervously.

Azula lifted the garment, her gaze running over the length of it one last time. Then she handed it off to an anxious Fena, who all but snatched it from her.

“I want you out by morning,” the woman snapped as she draped the dress over her arm.

“I’ll be gone before sunrise,” Azula promised. 

Fena snorted and stalked off back toward her rooms, muttering something about snotty tramps not knowing their place.

Azula flicked a middle finger toward the retreating woman’s back, indulging herself with a sliver of fire extending beyond the tip of her finger. Mollified, she trudged up the stairs to her room for the last time, closed the door behind her, and collapsed onto the bed with a muffled groan. Blanketed in exhaustion, she curled protectively around her satchel and fought the urge to sleep, not trusting herself to wake before dawn if she allowed herself that luxury. Instead, she breathed in deeply and focused on manipulating her body heat toward the muscles and joints that throbbed from three long days on her feet in a bustling kitchen and many more nights of little sleep on the hard cot. Whenever she caught herself on the edge of drifting into unconsciousness, she lifted a hand and sent little orange flames dancing between her fingertips, punctuating the fiery choreography with shots of brilliant blue, comforting herself with her exertion of perfect control. 

Whatever destruction and recklessness she had fallen into, _flung herself into_ , she always had her fire. 

  
  
  
  
  


* * *

In the darkness just before dawn, the ground rumbled.

Already on her feet, combing her fingers through her hair in the dim light from the street that filtered through her open window, Azula froze. It had been years since she felt the tremors that so often accompanied the work of _earthbenders_ , but she remembered. 

She didn’t wait to hear the insistent _rap rap rap_ at the door of the boarding house before she sprang into action. She stopped herself just before she leapt for the open window. 

She could hear Fena shouting from the first floor, furious that anyone would dare disturb the house at such an hour. Abandoning her window, Azula slipped out of her room instead, closed the door quietly behind her, and darted down the hallway. Heart pounding, she ducked into the last room on the hall. Its occupant, an old drunkard, snored softly in his bed. Azula pressed her ear to the closed door, but she needn’t have. The _visitors_ forced their way inside the building with a muffled thud of the door. Fena’s shrill, outraged protests altered when she realized who it was.

“ _You…you can’t just barge in here like this!_ ”

“We have reason to believe you may be harboring a person of interest to the state.”

“ _What?! I’m doing no such thing!”_

A deep voice described her, described her yellow dress, demanded to know where she was staying. Fena’s shaking voice indicated her room. Moments later, she heard the softest patter of footsteps on the rooftop, heading the other way. Toward her room, where she'd almost made the mistake of jumping from her own window.

Breathing shallow, heart in her throat, Azula darted for the window as the steps to the second floor creaked. Even the Dai Li couldn’t be stealthy enough to subdue those damned steps. There was a faint scraping sound then, as if they'd abandoned the steps to scale the walls to the second floor. She imagined them waiting at the door to her room, gathering their courage. They surely expected a fight. They would surely be _afraid_.

Fear and exhilaration coursed through her as she quietly slipped over the ledge of the window in the old man’s room. The street below was empty, and she dropped down to the dirt just as the door slammed open down the hall. Azula imagined them storming in, ready to bend their rock gloves; running to the opened window when they discovered the room was empty. She ghosted across the dark street into the cover of an alley and paused to look back. Sure enough, the backs of two agents were outlined in the first light of dawn, crouched on the rooftop on the side of the building just above her window. Looking down, poised, waiting.

 _Fools_.

It was silent for a moment, then someone began barking orders.

Everything was in jeopardy, but she had not come so far to be taken down by an organization that once knelt before her in fealty. She didn’t stop to wonder who recognized her or how they found her as she slipped down the alley and vaulted herself over a series of slat fences. She didn’t stop to wonder what they would do to get more information out of Fena, because it didn’t matter. Fena knew very little. She would make it to the fish market before they could determine her next move. She had to.

  
  
  


* * *

  
  


Yunong’s wisps of breath disappeared into the chilled morning air as he crouched atop the roof of the boarding house, waiting. Waiting for the shouting. Waiting for the comforting _thuds_ of rock hitting their target. Perhaps waiting for fire.

The door slammed open, and for a moment he stopped breathing. Beside him, his fellow agent’s tension was palpable. Gerel had been there. He understood.

A peaked hat suddenly stuck out from the window below them and turned slowly to reveal a brother’s face. The agent was frowning, and he shook his head at them before disappearing back into the room.

Relief and devastation warred in Yunong. He was balanced on a razor’s edge. He didn’t want to contemplate the possible consequences of failure. He’d risked everything on a hunch, on a _feeling_.

He tried to conjure the woman on the monorail again in his mind, and the insidious doubts crept in. She seemed young enough. She was pretty. The hair was wrong. Face heavily made up. Her features seemed a blur now. What if he’d made a mistake? What if it was only his imagination?

Beside him, Gerel sighed and stood up. “So much for that. Now what?”

Yunong’s expression hardened. “Now we go get answers from that hag. She must have been gone before we got here. But we’ll find her.”

Gerel cast him a skeptical look. “Are you _sure_ about this, Yunong? What if you were mista-”

“I know what I saw,” Yunong cut him off, insistent. But he didn’t. He only knew for sure what he _felt_ when the young woman who caught his eye so briefly returned his gaze. She’d simpered behind a fan like some painted upper crust dolt, but before that, for the fraction of a moment, she’d simply looked at him. Faces might blur with time, but _fear_ could never be forgotten. The body stored it. The body remembered. And when she looked at him, a shiver ran through him that transported him back to the caverns beneath the city. To the Earth King’s throne room. To a bunker within a dormant volcano. To the floor below the throne of the Fire Nation. To the moment he was humiliated by a terrifying girl with piercing eyes and a wall of blue flames at her command. _He remembered her_.

“If you say so,” Gerel replied. “But the sergeant won’t be happy if this turns out to be a waste of our time.” With that warning, he leapt down to the ground, and Yunong followed. 

Within the boarding house, they found the mistress near tears, her hands clutched in front of her as she spoke to the agents inside.

“I swear I don’t know anything,” the woman pleaded.

“Well?” Yunong demanded of his compatriots as he stepped into the building and shut the door behind him. 

Sidao, a newer recruit with less than a year of experience to his name, cast Yunong a sharp glance. Yunong bristled. 

Another of their brothers was holding shards of ceramic in his hands, examining the brown-stained edge of one of the pieces. “Looks like blood,” he observed with a shrug.

“That’s all we found in the room,” another replied. “Completely empty otherwise.”

“Did you check the rest of the house?” Yunong demanded, though it was clear they had. He could hear disgruntled and frightened voices floating down from the second floor.

“Of course.”

“Nothing. She’s not here.”

“She… she said she was leaving before sunrise,” the mistress offered in a tremulous voice.

“Where would she have gone?” Yunong queried as he turned to her. 

“I don’t know, I don’t know anything else!” the woman insisted.

“Known associates?” Yunong questioned the agents who had already spoken to the distraught woman.

“Repeat what you told us,” an agent prompted the woman.

The woman’s lower lip trembled, and she brought a hand to her temple as she spoke. “She was working, I think. She said… something about a fruit vendor at a market once when I came for her late rent. Two days ago she was shut out and woke me up. I lock the doors promptly at ten every evening. No exceptions. But she raised such a fuss that I had no choice but to let her in. She claimed she worked late at a restaurant in the Middle Ring...by the nearest passage through the wall, had to walk home. But I think…I think she might have been getting up to some _other things_ too. I don’t tolerate _that_ here, I swear! I don’t have proof. But I had my suspicions. I was happy to get rid of her. Please, I don’t want any trouble here,” the woman whimpered.

Sidao shot Yunong a _look_ again that made his blood boil. _So you saw some pretty whore on the train,_ Sidao had laughed at him days ago when he first sought out backup. _How is this worth our time?_

Yunong waved off the woman, who looked ready to collapse from stress. She was the type to spill her guts at even the hint of pressure, and he was certain they had nothing further to learn from her. The agents silently filed outside the building to regroup.

“We split up,” Yunong instructed once they were all outside. “Half to the Middle Ring, half to the nearest market. Do whatever it takes to get information about this girl. And we should notify headquarters. Shut down all travel out of the city immediately.”

“ _Hold on_ ,” Sidao chimed in. “Shutting down all exit from the city will shut down commerce. It could cause panic. The king will certainly find out, and then what? Are you ready to explain this to him, or even to the sergeant, when we don’t even have a body or any proof at all beyond what _you think_ you saw?” His tone was derisive, his look dismissive.

“We’ll have a body if we shut everything down,” Yunong insisted, maintaining his composure despite how much he would have liked to send a rock flying into Sidao’s face. The recruit thought he knew everything. He thought he was special because a sergeant favored him. Yunong had once operated at the right hand of the Grand Secretariat himself. He had even been _more powerful,_ because when the moment came, _he_ was the one the men looked to. He was the one they followed.

“You’re not in charge anymore, Yunong, remember?” Sidao countered with a cold look in his eyes. “You don’t get to make that call. We need to contact the sergeant before we proceed.”

Yunong clenched a fist. That that sneering little ass-licker would _dare_ throw his demotion in his face…

“Why don’t you contact the sergeant, Sidao?” Gerel cut in, quiet and diplomatic. “The rest of us will proceed gathering information until you return with orders.”

“Fine,” Sidao conceded, obviously glad for the opportunity to go running to the sergeant with news of Yunong’s imagined failures.

“I’ll take half to the Middle Ring,” Gerel offered. 

Yunong nodded assent and pivoted on a heel, heading off toward the nearest market. It did not escape his notice that half of his brothers hesitated before they followed behind him. Not so long ago, they would have followed his lead without question. They allowed him to speak for them in the absence of the Long Feng. They trusted him.

Everything was different now. One grave error in judgment had reduced him to a laughingstock, an embarrassment, though they had all followed behind him. They _all_ knelt before the Fire Princess. 

And she humiliated them. Humiliated _him_. They served her loyally, and she rewarded them with aspersions of treachery. She threw them out like trash and sent them slinking back to the Earth Kingdom with their tails between their legs. Condemned them to be branded traitors. Left them no choice but to beg for the foolish Earth King’s forgiveness and accept whatever lot he granted them. Yunong felt he could shake the foundations of a mountain when he thought of it.

If he was right about that girl, she would pay. He would see _her_ kneel at the Earth King’s mercy. He would see her on her knees, or else he would see the light snuffed out of those golden eyes.


	20. Chapter 20

Already crowded by the time dawn had fully overtaken the sky, the fish market provided some small relief of cover as Azula made her way to the Blue Eel. She’d stopped running once she left the shadows of the alleys with the boarding house and the Dai Li at least several blocks behind her, not wanting to draw unnecessary attention to herself. Heart still pounding wildly, she found Gamuo’s associate leaning against the outside of the building, arms folded across his chest. He was wearing a hat and had a satchel of his own strapped across his chest. The man noticed her immediately as she approached and greeted her with a smile.

“I almost thought you might not be coming,” he said with a glance toward the morning sky. “I was just ready to leave.”

“Good,” Azula breathed. “Let’s get a move on then.” She tried to conceal any hint that she was on edge, but the man still glanced at her curiously.

“Not so fast… Mura, wasn’t it? There’s still the matter of payment,” he asserted, adjusting his glasses on the bridge of his nose. 

She wanted to shout at the man, or perhaps throttle him, but she collected herself and reached into her satchel, removing her full purse of coins and holding it up for him to see. “You get paid when I get on a ship.”

The man lifted a brow as he eyed her purse, and seemingly satisfied with the apparent size and weight of it, he nodded his assent and pushed himself away from the wall. “Fair enough. Let’s be on our way then.”

Azula frowned. “We’re _walking?_ ”

The man smiled at her again. “To the monorail. It’s the fastest way to the Outer Wall. Don’t worry, your ticket is covered.”

“And then what?” she demanded. From what she remembered of her close study of the city, it could take days to _walk_ from the Outer Wall to Chameleon Bay. She didn’t have that sort of time.

“And then you’re going to have to take it easy and trust me. I promised we would get you to the bay, and so we will.”

Much as she despised the idea of having to trust a complete stranger and even of getting on the monorail with Dai Li agents on her trail, she had little choice. She ought to tell the man that her circumstances had changed and she was in trouble, but he would certainly try to back out of their deal if she did. Grimly, Azula accepted that no matter what she did, her day was likely to end in a fight. She had no room to wallow in regret for the choices that landed her in such a mess.

“Fine,” Azula sighed, casting furtive glances at the market around her. “Let’s go then.”

The man wasted no further time veering off into the crowd, and Azula followed closely on his heels. The nearest monorail station was only a few blocks away, and her heart thudded in her chest as they climbed the steps to the platform to wait. She was relieved to find no one but civilians and regular city security milling about, though she didn’t like how open it was. 

_You carry yourself like royalty. Don’t carry yourself like royalty, and no one will suspect that’s what you are._

Iriya’s advice from long ago sprang to mind, and Azula realized she had grown lax. Even the peevish cook in the restaurant had determined her class by simply observing her. She immediately crossed her arms over her chest and hunched her shoulders, as if to ward off the morning chill. 

When the train finally arrived, they showed their passports and tickets before boarding among the throng of other citizens and barely managed to find a place to sit. 

“Lek,” the man spoke without prompting as he settled himself between Azula and another man and placed his satchel in his lap.

Azula glanced aside. “Is that your name?”

“No, but it’s what you can call me if you need to,” Lek replied. “I figured if we are to be traveling companions, we ought to at least have names.”

“Are we traveling companions now?” Azula queried, wondering if he had guessed that Mura wasn’t really her name any more than Lek was his.

“At least for a little while. For longer if Gamuo takes you on. I’m going along on this trip,” Lek explained. 

“Do you not usually?” she asked absently, scanning the occupants of the train car. She let out her breath as the car rumbled with the shifting of rock and began to move.

“No, usually I’m stuck in that little office working through numbers day after day,” Lek replied. “But every so often I go along. It’s nice to see a little of the rest of the world. And sometimes one just needs to _get out_ of this city, you know?”

Azula laughed bleakly as she glanced out the window and watched the last of the city slums roll by before they passed into the Agrarian Zone. How well she knew. She wished she had never set foot in the wretched place. 

* * *

Azula flexed her fingers as she stood on the balcony of the royal chambers in the palace of Ba Sing Se, listening to her new Supreme Bureaucratic Administrator drone on with the relief of a cool evening breeze at her back. The tips of her middle and index fingers still tingled. Or it least, it seemed as if they did. Perhaps it was only her imagination. 

“And with that, I conclude my report,” Joo Dee intoned with a perfunctory, unnecessary bow. “Is there any other way I may be of service?” 

“No. You will have detailed orders delivered to you in the morning before my departure. You’re dismissed,” Azula replied with a wave of her hand. She found the woman irritating and the almost vacant expression in her eyes disturbing, but the agent would serve her purpose well enough. She was not a ruler nor even a singular person, rather she was a member of a system. She belonged to the Dai Li, and the Dai Li now belonged to the Fire Nation. 

“It is an honor to serve, Your Highness,” Joo Dee said with a second, deeper bow before she turned and made her way back through the bedchamber. She opened the sliding door that separated the bedchamber from the rest of the room and startled when she found Ty Lee on the other side, fist poised in the air as if to knock. 

“Oh! I beg your pardon,” Joo Dee apologized.

“Sorry! I didn’t mean to scare you,” Ty Lee answered, equally apologetic. Her gaze shifted past the older woman to where Azula stood with her arms crossed over her chest on the balcony. She looked as if she could hardly contain herself, which meant she had news.

“Get in here,” Azula admitted her with a jerk of her head.

Suddenly grinning from ear to ear, Ty Lee scooted past Joo Dee and took a moment to offer the woman a polite bow before she closed the door behind her. She spun back around on the tips of her toes and launched herself across the room, flopping onto the enormous bed in the middle of the room with a squeal.

“ _It worked!_ ”

Azula quirked a brow as she watched her friend make herself comfortable on the freshly dressed bed of the deposed Earth King. _Her bed_ , at least for the night. At times, Ty Lee took far too many liberties, but she didn’t have the heart to reprimand her. If the lines between their friendship and their current status as commander and subordinate were blurred, the fault lay at her own feet. It was a commander’s responsibility to give precise directions and set clear boundaries. Ty Lee was a good soldier who always followed her lead and often even anticipated her moves before she made them. Invaluable traits in both a soldier and a friend. She couldn’t be faulted for responding to the familiarity that Azula allowed.

“I’m going to need more details than that,” Azula sighed as she stepped back inside the bedchamber. 

Ty Lee’s announcement was encouraging, but Azula refrained from allowing herself to truly gloat until her complete success was assured. She’d put a great deal of effort into constructing an evening that would ensure Zuko and Mai rekindled their childhood feelings. Frustrating as it was that her brother needed any prompting at all to return home with her, she was counting on Mai to help convince him. _Forcing_ the issue was the last thing she wanted to do after what they had accomplished together.

“Your plan worked!” Ty Lee reiterated. “They just got back a little while ago,” she explained as she propped herself up on her elbows, her feet swinging in the air behind her. “Zuko was all wet, apparently he fell in a fountain!” Ty Lee laughed. Then she gasped, and her eyes widened. “Hey, remember when we were little, in the royal gardens?! When you lit the apple on Mai’s head on fire and Zuko knocked her into the fountain?!”

“ _Ty Lee_. Take a breath. Focus,” Azula instructed as she sat down on the edge of the bed, twisting her upper body to face the other girl.

“Sorry,” Ty Lee breathed. “It’s just _so perfect!_ Okay, they came in with Zuko all wet and both of them all blush-y and awkward. Zuko went to bed, so I interrogated Mai.”

“Is he coming or not?” Azula cut in impatiently. He _would_ come home, one way or another. She hoped it would be the easy way.

“Well, she didn’t say. I don’t think Mai even knows yet. I guess he didn’t say,” Ty Lee replied. 

“Then that wasn’t much of an interrogation, was it?” Azula snapped. “And why would you say my plan worked when we don’t know that it did?”

“I thought you meant...I mean, the plan was to get them to reconnect, right?” Ty Lee asked as she pushed herself up onto her knees. 

That was decidedly _not_ the plan, at least not nearly the extent of it, but Ty Lee’s enthusiasm seemed irrepressible. “I’m still not seeing the part where _it worked_ ,” Azula complained with a scowl.

“I wasn’t finished with the story, Azula!” Ty Lee protested before holding up a hand. “Okay, so Mai was being all coy at first but I got it out of her.” She paused for a beat, as if for dramatic effect. “ _They kissed!”_

 _Oh_. Azula relaxed then, allowing herself to indulge in a bit of relief. “Well, good,” she replied with a nod. “So they’re together, and he will be coming home,” she surmised.

Ty Lee tilted her head to one side. “Uh, well…I guess it’s more likely now? I mean, they reconnected, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re _together_.”

Azula frowned. “What do you mean, they’re not necessarily together? You _just said_ that they kissed.”

Blinking at her as if there was anything confusing about the statement, Ty lee scrunched her brows together and chewed on her lower lip for a moment before she spoke. “Right. And that’s a good sign, but...it’s not automatic, you know?”

Frustrated, Azula narrowed her gaze. “Why would they kiss each other if they don’t intend to _be together?_ ” she demanded. “That’s entirely senseless. And they can’t be together unless he comes home.”

“I mean… sometimes people...sometimes, it’s complicated,” Ty Lee countered nonsensically. “Sometimes people kiss without really intending to be a couple,” she tried again. “Haven’t you ever…” she trailed off, as if seconding-guessing the question she was about to ask.

“Haven’t I ever _what?_ ” Azula pushed, vexed by the way Ty Lee was looking at her. As if she was some sort of oddity.

“Haven’t you ever wanted to...kiss somebody just to kiss them?” she finally stammered out. Azula simply stared at her, and Ty Lee’s brow furrowed. “Wait, have you ever kissed anybody _at all?_ ” she blurted out. Then her mouth popped open stupidly, and she backtracked. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have ask-”

“Of course not,” Azula scoffed, cutting her off. She flicked at a lock of her hair in annoyance. “Who would I have even been kissing?” It occurred to her belatedly that there might be something wrong with the fact that she hadn’t. Maybe she should have lied. But it was too late.

“I don’t know,” Ty Lee shrugged. “I was gone for awhile. I don’t know what you were getting up to. We haven’t really talked much about what any of us were doing for those two years.” 

“I was _studying_ and _training_ ,” Azula ground out, left with no recourse but to continue with the truth. “You know, _important_ things,” she added, lifting her chin. Growing desperate to somehow save face, she briefly contemplated telling Ty Lee about the whispers she had caught wind of in the palace court before she was sent off on her mission. She decided against it, not wanting to dwell on the matter herself. She was disgusted with the idea that anyone would have dared make overtures to her father about arranging a match for her with whatever idiotic spawn they imagined to be worthy of her. Whatever satisfaction she might get out of boasting about her would-be suitors to Ty Lee would sour in her mouth before she even finished speaking of it, and she didn’t even want to consider the possibility. Such arrangements were not uncommon among the nobility, especially for royalty, but she was different. _Her_ father would never force that fate upon her. She was not just a princess. She was a soldier, and they were at war. She was too important. He needed her too much. Didn’t he?

“Well, kissing is important too,” Ty Lee asserted with a grin, her retort tugging Azula back from the unpleasant direction of her thoughts. “But I guess not as important as that other stuff,” she conceded.

Azula sniffled, taking advantage of the opportunity to redirect the conversation. “Well, who have _you_ been running around kissing?” She was curious, but she realized that some part of her didn’t want to know at all.

“Oh, just a boy in the circus,” Ty Lee responded before Azula could retract the question. “He was really cute, and he was an acrobat like me. _And_ he could juggle!”

Azula’s upper lip curled. “Maybe you ought to keep that to yourself,” she suggested, her own embarrassment over her lack of experience somewhat eased by the idea that Ty Lee ought to be equally embarrassed for her choices.

Ty Lee simply laughed. “Oh, come on. It’s not that bad. He was _very_ cute. Makes up for the fact that he wasn’t exactly, um, of the same station.”

Azula rolled her eyes. “I doubt it.” She meant to drop the subject, but her curiosity had not abated, and a new angle to the topic occurred to her mere moments before she found herself prying Ty Lee with another question. “Were you and this boy together when you left the circus?” 

_When_ you left _the circus. That’s one way to put it_.

“Nope,” Ty Lee shook her head. “He took off a few months before that. Moved on to something else,” she added with a shrug. 

Somehow, that made it worse. It would have been easier to imagine that Ty Lee had initially refused to leave with her if some stupid juggling acrobat was the force that held her back. _What other reason could she have had to say no?_

“But it doesn’t matter,” Ty Lee went on, oblivious to the source of Azula’s interrogation. “I guess I should have spent more time studying and training myself.” She shifted on the bed, curling her legs under her as she settled down against the mattress. “Maybe then _I_ would be the one who could say I conquered a kingdom before I even had my first kiss,” she added with a sly smirk.

“Are you making fun of me?” Azula demanded, brow furrowing. She meant to convey displeasure, anger even, but to her dismay she only sounded pathetically sensitive.

“ _No!_ ” Ty Lee protested with a gasp, eyes wide. Instantly, she scooted closer to the edge of the bed and reached out a hand to touch Azula’s arm. “Azula, _no_. I wouldn’t do that,” she insisted. “It doesn’t matter that you haven’t kissed anybody yet. We’re only fourteen,” she reasoned, conciliatory and seemingly sincere. “We’ve got our whole lives ahead of us. And how many girls in… _all of history_ can say they conquered Ba Sing Se?” she added, throwing both hands in the air dramatically. “You’re like a…” She suddenly trailed off, and close as she was, Azula noted a flush in her cheeks.

“Like a what?” she muttered, trying to fight the effect of Ty Lee’s praise on her wounded feelings.

“I…was going to say you’re like a warrior goddess,” Ty Lee admitted with a laugh as she pulled the end of her braid over her shoulder and toyed with it. “But that probably sounds a little…”

“You’re just trying to flatter me,” Azula cut her off, lifting her hand and examining her nails nonchalantly. “But I’ll allow it,” she added with the barest hint of a smirk curling her lips.

Ty Lee laughed again, yet there was an inexplicable tension in her expression when Azula stole a glance at her. It was no longer simple enthusiasm. She was suddenly exuding a sort of nervous energy that set Azula’s own nerves on edge.

“Hey, Azula?” Ty Lee prodded, sitting back up on her knees and leaning forward.

“Hm?” Azula replied with feigned disinterest, returning her attention to her hands in order to avoid Ty Lee’s gaze. She could feel it though, along the side of her face, against her neck, almost as if she was being touched. She felt very warm, and she stopped pressing the tips of her middle and index finger to her thumb, willing the sensation she previously tried to squash out of them to come back. It would be a welcome diversion from the agitation that Ty Lee’s strange behavior stirred in her. 

“I was just thinking, um... I mean, I was wondering if maybe you’d want to-”

Ty Lee’s thought was cut off by a sharp rapping at the door. 

“ _Enter,_ ” Azula called out quickly as she pushed to her feet, equally annoyed by the disturbance and grateful for the distraction from the bizarre and uncomfortable sense of vulnerability her conversation with Ty Lee subjected her to.

The door slid open, and a Dai Li agent on the other side dropped to a knee.

“Forgive the intrusion, Princess,” the man intoned, his voice low and features shadowed by his hat. “You wanted to know when we were ready.”

“Oh, yes,” Azula affirmed. “Come in, I want to speak with you.” She pulled in a deep breath, quelling her unsettled nerves and rapidly composing herself as she moved away from the bed entirely. 

The agent rose and stepped fully into the room, closed the door behind him, and promptly returned to one knee just inside. Azula briefly considered telling him to rise, but she decided that she liked his assumed posture better. It made her feel more like herself. Less like some sort of fool who was inexplicably rattled by her own friend.

“You’ve chosen your men, then?” Azula questioned coolly. 

“Yes. The best of the lot, just as you asked.”

“Good. Make sure they’re all prepared to travel by sunrise.”

“I will, Your Highness.” 

Azula tilted her head to the side as she observed the man where he knelt before her, his head lowered in deference, shadowed features solemn. “What’s your name?” she demanded suddenly.

The man hesitated for a moment. “Yunong, Your Highness,” he finally intoned.

“Yunong,” she repeated, testing the name out. “How do you feel about leaving Ba Sing Se?”

The man tilted his head upward, and for a moment their eyes met. “I have no feelings about it at all,” he replied as he respectfully lowered his head again. “My life is dedicated to the Dai Li, and we follow where you lead.”

“Hm,” Azula hummed, clasping her hands behind her back as she began pacing across the floor. She cast a covert glance toward Ty Lee, who was watching both of them curiously. “You don’t have any family you will be leaving behind? Nothing that means anything to you?”

Yunong hesitated again. “I was an only child, Your Highness. My parents died many years ago. I have a son, but he lives with his mother. I make sure they are well cared for, that is all. Family ties are discouraged within our organization. We belong to the Dai Li. To you.”

Azula stopped pacing directly in front of Yunong and pivoted on her heels. “Why did you choose me?” she demanded, focusing intently on the agent and crushing the urge to ascertain Ty Lee’s attention again.

Yunong was quiet for a moment, but when he spoke his voice was full of conviction. “The Grand Secretariat had position. But you have real power. No thinking man would choose otherwise. What we witnessed in the catacombs confirmed the correctness of our decision. Your Highness acted with the confidence and decisiveness of a true leader.”

A smile pulled at one corner of Azula’s lips as she resumed her pacing. She caught Ty Lee’s eye for a moment, but she could not read her expression. She would certainly know what the Dai Li agent was referring to. She’d heard the story first from Azula’s own lips, and she had not reacted then either beyond a simple congratulations for the victory. Annoyed, her smile faded, and she was acutely aware of the tingling in the tips of her fingers again. 

“I did what was necessary, no more and no less,” she replied, stopping before the open doors to the balcony and gazing out over the city. She only regretted that she had failed to procure _proof_ for her father. The fact that she did not have the Avatar’s body in her possession nagged at her just as it had appeared to bother Zuko earlier. _What if?_

It was her uncle’s fault that the waterbender had gotten away with the Avatar’s body. Despicable traitor that he was, he gave the girl the opportunity to escape and marred the flawlessness of Azula’s victory. Clenching her fists behind her back, she turned on her heels to face the waiting Dai Li agent. 

“My uncle?” she queried.

“Ready and awaiting transportation to the ship, Your Highness,” Yunong answered immediately. “We can move him tonight so everything will be ready in the-”

“No,” Azula interjected, an idea swiftly altering her plans. “Leave him in his cell tonight.” She moved closer to the agent again, her voice clear and commanding. “Wait until morning to move him. I’m going to make sure my brother is at the docks with us, and I task _you_ , Yunong, with personally ensuring that my brother sees our uncle being loaded onto the ship. I’m confident my brother will be returning with us as well, but if a... _situation_ should arise, you will be ready to follow my lead. Is that clear?”

She was staring intently down at the Dai Li agent, but a movement caught the corner of her eye. Azula glanced aside and noted that Ty Lee had shifted on the bed and was examining her nails, no longer watching either of them. She might have thought that she was not paying attention at all if not for the little wrinkle between Ty Lee’s brows where they pushed together and the way she was clearly chewing on the inner corner of her lip. It was a look Azula had seen before. Something was bothering her. 

“Perfectly clear, Princess,” Yunong replied evenly.

There was no doubt in Azula’s mind that the man would fulfill his duty, and she ought to have simply dismissed him, but some perverse urge made her carry on.

“I’m _so glad_ to hear that, Yunong,” Azula said, her tone lilting. “You know, this isn’t the first time I was all set to bring that traitor home to face justice. Would you like to hear what happened the first time?” she questioned, cocking her head to one side. 

“If Your Highness would like to tell me, then certainly,” Yunong responded. 

“The last time, everything was perfect. The prisoners did not even know that they were prisoners. Would you _believe_ it if I told you that a mere slip of the tongue from the captain of my own ship _ruined everything?_ He alerted them with his stupidity, and they fought their way free! Do you have any idea the time and resources that could have been saved had that _one_ _fool_ not made such an egregious mistake?” Had that one fool not made such an egregious mistake, she would have been back home long ago. Zuko would not have had the chance to redeem himself and return home as a hero rather than a prisoner. She would not have slain the Avatar, and she would not have conquered Ba Sing Se. But that was hardly the point. 

“That must have been bitterly disappointing,” Yunong commented.

“Oh yes, it was,” Azula agreed. “Such a shame too. He was a decent captain otherwise, but…fools cannot be suffered. His mistake cost me much, and it cost him _everything_.”

Silence hung thick in the air for a few prolonged moments, and Azula simply waited. The captain in question had been stripped of all rank and sent home to live with the shame of his failures, but she would let the agent reach his own conclusions about the man’s fate. Whatever his imagination conjured would certainly be far worse than the fate the captain had actually suffered. The mind usually worked that way. Fear _always_ worked that way. 

Satisfied to note a fleeting twitch in the man’s otherwise stony expression, Azula shifted her gaze toward the bed again to find that her friend was staring at her. Ty Lee blinked and looked away, and Azula frowned. 

A throat cleared. “I assure you, Princess,” Yunong intoned, his voice full of conviction. “I will not fail you. The Dai Li will not fail you. Everything will be exactly as you wish it.”

Azula waved a hand. “I’m _sure_ it will be,” she agreed, half assurance and half threat. “You’re dismissed.”

The Dai Li agent dipped lower toward the ground. “Your Highness.”

Releasing a sigh as the door closed in the agent's wake, Azula turned fully toward Ty Lee and observed her. She was absently tracing the ornate patterns on the silky coverlet with the tip of her finger, and she did not raise her eyes even though they were alone again. Crossing her arms over her chest, Azula contemplated the possibility that she had gone farther than necessary in making a point. Ty Lee had always been a sensitive thing. Perhaps she was only bothered by the imprisonment of Uncle Iroh, whom she seemed to like and even found entertaining for some incomprehensible reason. She might be upset about the Avatar if she saw him as merely a little boy rather than as the enemy that he was. She hadn’t been there to see the way that _little boy_ rose into the air above them, glowing with a fury like nothing that belonged to the earth that Azula knew. She might fail to see that the Avatar would have destroyed both her and Zuko if given the opportunity. If she had not struck first. Perhaps she didn’t understand that there was no malice in the act. They were at war. There was only necessity and survival. Victor and vanquished. 

“What’s the matter with you?” Azula finally demanded when she couldn’t stand the silence any longer.

Ty Lee raised her eyes then. “Nothing!” she swore, but the high spirits she brought into the room with her had vanished, and no amount of forced exuberance in her voice could hide that.

Azula raised a brow. “You’re lying. What’s bothering you?”

Ty Lee was chewing on her lip again, and then she sighed. “I’m sorry. I just… don’t feel so well.”

Azula frowned. “You’re not ill, are you?” she asked, suddenly concerned and wondering if she’d misread the shift in Ty Lee’s mood. 

Ty Lee shook her head. “No, I mean not really. It’s just, uh... you know, the monthly, um-” 

“ _Oh_ ,” Azula grimaced sympathetically, more relieved than she was willing to let on. “Well, go lie down and get some rest then. We’re still leaving early tomorrow.”

Ty Lee nodded and pushed herself up off the bed. “Are you sure _you_ want to go?” she asked suddenly. “I feel like you could get used to being _Earth Queen_ ,” she added with a small smile that was a pale shadow of her former enthusiasm.

Azula snorted. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not an Earth Queen, nor do I have any interest in being one.” She had no interest in being any sort of queen at all. 

“Well, green does look really good on you,” Ty Lee offered as she stepped toward the door. 

“Go to bed, Ty Lee,” she responded with a roll of her eyes. “Actually, why don’t you go down to the kitchens first. Get some rice and put it in a sock. Make them heat it up for you. It will help.”

Ty Lee lifted her brows and stared for a moment. “That’s a good idea. A lady in the circus told me to do that once, but I never actually tried it. Where did you get that idea?”

“From myself, who else?” Azula queried sharply.

“Oh.” Ty Lee glanced downward, then looked up again. “Well, thanks for the suggestion. I think I’ll go do that.”

“Goodnight,” Azula replied, as much a dismissal as a bid.

Ty Lee pressed a fist to her palm and dipped her head. “Goodnight, Princess.”

Her exit from the room was quiet and subdued, and in her absence Azula refused to dwell on the strangeness of their interaction. She was tired and Ty Lee was feeling unwell, that was all. She forced herself to shift her focus to the pressing issue that prevented her from taking her own well-earned rest. If her success was to be complete, she had to ensure that at the very least Zuko would agree to accompany them to their ship in the morning. Everything else would take care of itself from there.

Azula slipped quietly from the royal chambers herself a few minutes after Ty Lee’s departure and made her way through the vast halls of the palace toward the rooms Zuko had been given. Dai Li agents stationed at various points bowed their heads as she passed, and Azula could not help but smile. She imagined how her father would react when she returned home with the Earth Kingdom on its knees, the Avatar slain, her traitor uncle in chains, a plan to save their nation from an impending invasion that her subterfuge had uncovered, and the Dai Li itself at her back to aid them. He would be _so proud_ , surely. She had been given a mission, and she was returning with so much more, but she never forgot her original orders. She was to bring home both Iroh and Zuko. Everything would be so much easier for her if she simply let Zuko go to do as he pleased, let him give up his inheritance, but that was not an option. Father bid her bring them home, and she would not fail him. Besides, how much more satisfactory it would be to be _chosen_ rather than to have the crown fall to her because there was no one else...

There was only silence when Azula knocked at Zuko’s door, and she waited a few moments before pushing the door open. The room was completely dark but for dim light streaming in from the opened door to the balcony. She stepped inside and crossed the room without bothering to check the canopied bed, knowing exactly what she would find. 

Sure enough, she discovered her brother leaning over the stone rail surrounding the balcony, brooding rather than sleeping. Azula leaned against the frame of the doorway and crossed her arms over her chest, watching him for a moment before she cleared her throat.

Zuko startled and whirled. “ _Azula_ ,” he snapped when he recognized her. “What do you think you’re doing, sneaking around like that?” He seemed cross, his one brow furrowed over his good eye, but she realized it was harder to read him than it used to be. Sometimes his scarred face was still jarring to look at. He’d been wearing bandages when he left the Fire Nation years ago, and she’d had neither the time nor inclination to really _look_ at him in the past months that were spent in pursuit and strife. 

“Relax, Zuzu,” she cajoled. “No need to be so jumpy. I knocked, but you didn’t answer.”

“I didn’t hear,” Zuko replied. 

Azula stepped away from the doorway and joined him by the edge of the balcony. “Too lost in that maze up there,” she asserted, reaching over and flicking at his head for emphasis.

Zuko instinctively jerked back before she made contact and scowled at her. “I guess. What do you want?” 

She grinned at him as if they were still mere children, playing or fighting in the royal halls. He was watching her warily, his posture and expression practically radiating mistrust. She anticipated it. Expected it. 

“I wanted to talk to you. See how your evening went.”

“It went fine, but you already knew that. _I’m sure_ Mai talked to Ty Lee and Ty Lee went running straight to you, like always,” Zuko accused.

Still smirking at him, manufacturing a conspiratorial atmosphere in which he might imagine himself a co-conspirator, Azula shrugged. “Of course she did, but I wanted to hear it from you myself. I did go through _so much_ trouble to set up a nice evening for you, and you had the nerve to ditch it and go running around the slums instead.”

Zuko sighed and turned away from her, looking out over the dark expanse of the city. “Yeah, thanks for that, I guess. Though I don’t know why you would bother.”

“Is it really so hard to imagine that I wanted to do something nice for you to thank you? And for Mai? She’s been invaluable to me over the last few months as well,” Azula countered.

“We both know you don’t just _do nice things_ for people, Azula,” Zuko shot back, pivoting to face her again. 

Azula raised a brow. He spoke as if he hadn’t so recently challenged her to an Agni Kai while she merely carried out her duties. As if she had not gifted him the redemption he sought on a silver platter regardless. She told him she needed him, but she didn’t. She had the Dai Li. She could have utilized them to take both the Avatar and the waterbender with scarcely a need for her to lift a manicured finger. But that was not what a leader would do. She would not ask those under her command to do things beyond her own capabilities or willingness. She was not afraid to get her hands dirty, to prove herself on the frontlines. So she placed herself first in the fray and won her own victory, a victory that would make her father proud. And she made room for Zuko to win at her side. He was _so_ ungrateful. 

She wanted to throw it all back into his face. Instead, she laughed easily as she relented. “Fine. So I had an ulterior motive.” When Zuko only stared at her expectantly, she dropped her smile and adopted a more serious mien. “I want you to come home, Zuko,” she finally admitted.

“Not this again,” Zuko cut her off. “I already told you earlier today that I had to think about it, and I-”

“What’s stopping you?” Azula demanded. “Isn’t this _everything_ that you ever wanted?”

Zuko hesitated, then avoided both her question and her gaze. “Just because I’m being allowed home freely doesn’t mean that Father is going to restore my honor or my position,” he asserted. “It doesn’t mean I’m really welcome.”

There it was again. His _honor._ They had already been over that topic. Suppressing her annoyance, Azula took a step closer to him. “But _it will_ , because I’m going to make sure of it,” she swore. “Zuko, look at me.”

He continued to stare stubbornly out over the city for a few moments, but he finally acquiesced and turned to look at her again.

“I’ve already sent a glowing report ahead of us. Father knows you are loyal and true. He knows you stood by me. He knows you stood for the Fire Nation,” she promised. “When I speak to him face to face, he will have no choice but to welcome you with open arms.”

She could see it all in his eyes, the spark of hope mingling with mistrust. Uncertainty. Need. Strangely, she found herself pitying him. She could only imagine what it would be like to have endured such a devastating punishment, to have been deemed an unworthy disgrace and banished. To have the possibility of redemption within reach yet fear to stretch out a hand and take it. 

For a moment, standing together on a balcony with the whole of Ba Sing Se at their feet, the Fire Nation felt so far away, and their rivalrous past felt even farther. She could help him. She _would_ help him. Looking into her brother’s eyes, she realized that she truly wanted to. Despite his belligerence and ingratitude. Despite everything. Because everything could be different after what she had accomplished. 

She saw the future laid out before them, and it could be _perfect_ , if only he would comply. They would return home together as heroes. Father would be proud of both of them, but of her most of all. He couldn’t be otherwise. She would save the Fire Nation from the looming threat against them, and when the time came, she would kneel before the Fire Lord and ask of him precisely what he had asked of his own father. How could he deny her, after all she had done? How could he deny her the very thing he had sought for himself? Surely he _wanted_ her to be his heir, and Zuko did not even appear to desire the throne any longer. He might be angry to be displaced at first, but he would have years, decades, to get used to the idea. To build a life that would satisfy him. If he could accept the correct order of things, accept her as their father’s heir and someday as his Fire Lord, there was no reason they could not live together in peace. Even Uncle Iroh had known to accept his place when Father assumed the throne, at least at first. If Zuko remained wise enough not to follow in his traitorous footsteps, she could give him a position that would make him happy. _Perhaps he would like to be a general or an advisor._ Not that she would ever _take_ advice from him, but…

“Why would you help me?”

Zuko’s voice was demanding, but there was an almost desperate edge to it. 

“Because you helped me,” Azula answered simply. “Because we’re family. I know we’ve never really gotten along, Zuko,” she added when she noted the skepticism in his gaze, “but we’re not children anymore. Things can be different now.” _So long as you understand the way things are. So long as you understand your place._

Zuko frowned and shifted his gaze back toward the city below them again, but Azula could almost feel him softening. “I’m not sure they can,” he replied, but he sounded as though he hoped otherwise.

“Would you believe it if I said I’ve missed you, or is that taking it too far?” Azula teased. Acknowledging his mistrust of her was a risk, but one she was almost certain would pay off.

“Yeah, that’s taking it a little far,” Zuko snorted, but one corner of his mouth quirked upward when he glanced at her. “I’d believe it if you said you miss having someone to pick on.”

She grinned back at him for a moment, the disarmament nearly complete. “Really, Zuzu.” She lowered her voice and turned to look out over the city herself. “It’s been…a bit lonely around the palace the last few years, with you gone, and…” She trailed off. She did not need to mention their mother. Ursa was surely never far from his thoughts.

Zuko was quiet, but from the corner of her eye she caught the frown that etched itself into his brow. “I’m sure you’ve loved having Dad all to yourself,” he finally replied. There was a distinct bitterness in his tone, but there was something else too… a question, perhaps. An edge of concern. 

Casting him a brief glance, Azula answered with the barest lift of her shoulders. “He doesn’t have much time for me or anything besides this war,” she said.

“Maybe that’s a good thing,” Zuko asserted darkly. He was fidgeting then, and as the loaded silence wore on, he finally cracked. “Azula, has he ever…” 

She pivoted to face him again, lifting a brow expectantly. 

“I mean, are you alright?” Zuko finally asked, meeting her gaze with an earnestness in his expression that could almost have incited guilt within her.

“I’m fine, Zuko,” she replied quietly, offering a half smile before she looked away. Offensive as the mere suggestion that Father might treat her the same as him was, it could be to her benefit if she failed to convince him. 

_Don’t be a fool. He doesn’t_ really _care. He chose his precious honor. His position. Father. Not_ you. _That isn’t going to be enough._

Clenching her jaw, Azula inhaled deeply of the cool evening air, cleared her mind, and refocused. 

Zuko finally responded with a nod. “Guess I should have known better,” he added with that old bitterness tainting his tone again. “But I was gone a long time.”

Azula smiled wryly. It _would_ be nice to have someone around again to absorb the worst of their father’s moods. Someone whose mediocrity would always provide the perfect backdrop for her superiority.

“No need to worry yourself about me,” Azula answered breezily with a wave of her hand, shifting the tone of their conversation in a blink. “I won’t bother you about this further tonight, but if you decide not to come, will you at least come to the docks tomorrow morning to say goodbye?”

“I already kind of said goodbye to Mai tonight,” Zuko answered. 

Azula crossed her arms over her chest and raised a brow. “Well, _I’m_ not going to accept a farewell from you tonight, if you even had any intention of giving one. And if you won’t come home, then you really ought to say a proper goodbye to Mai in the morning. As of right now, I’m sure she’s still hopeful you’re coming. Don’t be _entirely_ uncivilized.”

With a sigh, Zuko nodded. “Sure, I’ll come to the docks in the morning.”

“Promise?” Azula pushed. If he gave his word, he would not break it. 

“I promise,” he agreed, sounding weary but sincere.

That was it, then. He would be coming home. His foolish attachment to his uncle would not allow him to do otherwise.

Azula smiled, trying to crush any hint of resentment. She won. That was all that mattered. Her father’s command was fulfilled, and she was bringing home so much more besides. With careful planning and perfect timing, she would overcome the obstacle that Zuko’s restoration presented. She would create the future that she envisioned.

“Thank you, Zuko,” she replied. She pushed herself away from the edge of the balcony and stepped toward the doorway, stopping just before she disappeared into the darkness and turning to look at him over her shoulder. “Oh, one more thing. I’m having new armor made for you.”

Zuko pivoted to look at her, his brow furrowing. “What? Why?”

“Because _if_ you come home, you’ll be coming home a hero. You’ll need to look the part. I’ve had a brand new set of armor waiting for me for months, and I sent ahead instructions that a matching set be made for you.”

“You want us to match?” Zuko asked with a short, incredulous laugh.

“The craftsmanship is excellent, and the design is flawless. Trust me. You’ll look every bit the hero, and together we would be the very image of the Fire Nation.”

Zuko managed a half smile, but he seemed sad and uncertain. 

“It would be a shame to let all of that go to waste,” Azula added with a shrug. “Anyway, I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Sure,” he mumbled in response before shifting to face the sleepless city once more. 

She had done all she could do, and she was leaving him on a more peaceful note than any that had existed between them in years. Since they were small. Maybe since she was born. If he went on making all of the right choices, maybe the peace between them could last. 

* * *

Yunong gritted his teeth as he exited a fruit vendor’s shop and briefly pushed up the brim of his hat to take in the mid-morning sun. Another waste of time, and every minute that ticked by was a minute that allowed his quarry a better chance of escape. He could not allow that. He was in a precarious position to begin with, and he’d put far too much on the line. Too many days spent trying to track down the girl from the train. Too much time and too many men expended on interrogating civilians. Perhaps he ought to have taken his chances and followed her after all. Seeking backup first had cost him so much time. 

If only she hadn’t looked at him. She _saw_ him, and if she was who he believed she was, following her alone could have meant a death sentence. He was afraid, and it shamed him. But only a fool would lack fear of a girl who struck down the Avatar at the height of his power. They _all_ feared her, and if that callow snake Sidao had been there, he would fear her too. 

A low whistle caught Yunong’s attention, and one of his brothers waved at him from the end of the street. People scurried out of his way as he hurried down toward the last fruit vendor on the block, and when he reached them he found three of his brothers surrounding a petite, frightened woman. 

“You’re going to want to talk to this one,” his brother indicated with a nod toward the woman.

Yunong looked her over. “Name?” 

“Kyeph,” the woman replied. 

“You know the girl described?” he demanded.

“I… I think so. Maybe,” she answered, her hands twisting her apron into knots in front of her as she looked between them. 

“Inside,” Yunong commanded, indicating the doorway behind the woman’s stall.

“Oh, please, can’t we just-”

“No. _Inside_.” Yunong cut off her protest and placed a hand on her shoulder. The woman relented and walked into the building, glancing over her shoulder reluctantly before she led them up a flight of stairs to an apartment. Upstairs, they found a comfortable, modestly furnished home. And two young boys. Twins, by the looks of them, though one was bigger than the other. The bigger one held a ball, his arm raised as if to pelt it at the smaller boy who was crouched on the other side of the room. They both froze as the Dai Li entered behind their mother, their eyes wide.

“Boys, go outside and play for a little while,” the woman instructed. 

“Mom?” the smaller boy piped up. He sounded frightened. 

“It’s alright, Luhan, just go-”

“I don’t have time for this,” Yunong interrupted. “What’s your association with the girl?”

“With Mura?” the woman asked. 

“If that’s what she claimed her name was,” Yunong replied impatiently.

“She worked for me for a little while. A few days a week, whenever I could use her. Not for long, several weeks maybe? I didn’t know her well.”

“Mom?” the smaller boy chimed in again. “What’s going on? What do they want with Mura?”

“Luhan, _please_ ,” Kyeph turned toward her sons. “Huan, would you please take your brother outside? Everything is going to be fine.”

Frowning, the taller boy walked over and grabbed his brother by the arm and tugged at him. “Come on…” he muttered as he pulled his brother toward the door.

Yunong clenched his jaw and shot out a hand to prevent the boys from leaving the room. Guilt pricked at him when he looked down at their faces and recognized the fear in their eyes. His own son was younger than them, was _his_ , but still…

“No,” Yunong forbade them. “The boys stay until we are finished here.”

The woman’s face seemed to pale, and she nodded. “Go sit down then boys, please, and let me handle this.”

“What else do you know about this _Mura?_ ” Yunong demanded, forcing himself to focus on the task at hand as the boys followed their mother’s instructions.

“She said she was from Yu Dao,” the woman offered. “That’s really all I know about her. She said she was leaving the city.”

Alarm spiked through Yunong. He might already be too late. “Did she say why or where she was going?” he demanded.

“Well, no…” Kyeph replied, seeming suddenly hesitant.

Yunong took a step closer, leaning down toward the woman. “Whatever else you know, you had better say _right now_ ,” he warned, casting a pointed look toward the boys sitting on the couch.

The woman’s eyes widened, and her voice shook when she next spoke. “She… she asked me… she said she needed a smuggler.”

“ _And?_ ” Yunong snapped, barely refraining from grabbing the woman by the arm and shaking her.

“I… I directed her to someone I…know of. Gamuo. Owns the Blue Eel at the fish market a few blocks-”

“We know of Gamuo,” one of the agents behind him interjected. 

Yunong pressed his lips together. They did indeed know Gamuo. The organization made a good earning every quarter from Gamuo and others like him. They paid the Dai Li to look the other way as they moved contraband. But moving _people_ was an entirely different story. 

“Where is that one? Full Moon?” Yunong demanded, turning to face the other agents. 

“Uh…no, Chameleon Bay, I think,” a brother answered.

“It’s Chameleon,” the woman offered, her gaze shifting uneasily between Yunong and her sons. “Please, that’s all I know.”

“Mom?” the smaller boy piped up again, his voice quavering. “What are they going to do to Mura?” He seemed ready to cry. 

Yunong glanced at the boy. He’d assumed the child was merely frightened by their presence, but perhaps there was something more to it. Pushing past the woman, Yunong approached the boys on the couch and crouched down, hoping he wasn’t wasting more precious time.

“It’s alright,” he began, adopting the tone he used with his own son when he needed to calm the child. “We just need to talk to your friend Mura, that’s all.” From the corner of his eye, Yunong noted that the boy’s mother had covered her mouth with a hand and looked half ready to cry herself. “Tell me something. You liked this girl?”

The boy called Luhan nodded, though his lower lip trembled as if he might still cry. 

“Can you tell me anything else about her? Anything maybe your mother wouldn’t have known?” Yunong pressed. 

“She was nice,” Luhan offered, his voice almost squeaking. “Well, sometimes. She got mad sometimes. She played games with me.”

“What sort of games?”

“Just, games. I don’t know,” Luhan whimpered before inhaling a shaking breath, and Yunong fought to suppress his impatience.

“And you?” he demanded quietly of the other boy who sat silently beside his brother.

“She wasn’t _nice_ ,” the bigger boy replied sullenly. “He just thinks that because she taught him how to fight a little.” 

Yunong inhaled sharply. “She taught you how to _fight_ ?” he repeated, leaning closer to the smaller boy. It wasn’t conclusive, yet he couldn’t help but think of the eclipse. The bunker. The princess facing multiple opponents even deprived of her bending. Then he remembered the beating he and Gerel had taken that day for the ungrateful little bitch, and his blood boiled. “ _Answer me!”_ he snapped when the child only stared at him stupidly, and the boy began to cry.

 _“Please!_ ” his mother begged, stepping toward them.

“I _just told you_ that she taught him how to fight! Leave him alone!” the bigger boy protested, and he put an arm around his crying brother’s shoulders.

Resisting the urge to teach the insolent boy a lesson for speaking back to him, Yunong pushed to his feet and turned toward his brothers. 

“You heard them,” he intoned. “We’re going to Chameleon Bay. Immediately.”

“Oh, excellent.”

Yunong’s agitation soared as he recognized Sidao’s voice, but dismay swiftly followed when his brothers parted to allow him access to the room. He didn't know how long Sidao had been standing behind the rest of them listening, but he wasn’t alone. The sergeant was standing directly beside him in the doorway.

 _Bastard_. 

“Sidao,” Yunong addressed him with a forced calm. “You were supposed to be getting permission to shut down exit from the city. I apologize, Sergeant,” he added with a respectful nod to his superior. “I did not ask him to bring you down here.”

“I thought the sergeant would like to see what’s going on for himself. Since this is _such_ an important matter.” Sidao smirked at him. 

The sergeant appeared irritated. He glanced between Kyeph and Yunong before he spoke. “Let’s take our business outside. Good afternoon,” he bid the woman with a nod before turning on his heels and silently exiting the apartment. Yunong followed behind his brothers, forgetting all about the frightened woman and her boys as he tried to curb his anxiety. Outside, they found Gerel and his group waiting for them. 

“Well?” Yunong asked, his pulse racing as he eyed his partner.

Gerel glanced between him and the sergeant. “We found a few places with employees who fit the description, but only one where the girl wasn’t still employed. This place said she was a dishwasher for a few days and then quit. Only thing anyone knew about her was that she claimed to be an Upper Ring runaway.”

Sidao openly laughed. “Well, this little intrigue just keeps getting better and better. So which is it? Migrant from Yu Dao or fugitive Fire Princess? Runaway rich girl? Or maybe just a regular old whore with a false passport and a vivid imagination.”

The sergeant cast Sidao a warning glance before turning his scowl on Yunong. “Do you have _any_ evidence that this one girl you’ve spent days having too many of my men try to root out and chase down is the Fire Princess and not…” he waved a hand, “any of that other nonsense?”

“That boy upstairs said she taught him how to fight,” Yunong replied, realizing as he spoke just how flimsy it sounded.

“So what?” Sidao cut in again. “Plenty of Lower Ring tramps know how to defend themselves. And plenty of Upper Ring socialites are trained in martial arts for the same reasons.”

Yunong gritted his teeth, his fingers twitching. If Sidao piped up one more time, he was uncertain he could prevent himself from knocking the fool’s teeth down his throat.

“Sir,” Yunong addressed the sergeant, his voice low and dangerously close to pleading. “ _I know what I saw_. And I knew _her_. I worked more closely with her than anyone else until she dismissed us.” 

“Yes, we’re all _well_ aware of that,” Sidao remarked with a smirk.

Yunong hardly realized that he was lifting his fist until he felt Gerel’s hand on his arm, calm yet forceful. 

“If you were so certain of what you saw, then why did you get off the train?” Sidao pushed. “Why didn’t you at least follow the target home instead of wasting _days_ having to track her down? That’s not proper protocol.”

“Because _she saw me_ ,” Yunong ground out. 

“You were afraid of a solitary girl? One little _potential_ firebender?” Sidao openly mocked him. Yunong felt the pressure of Gerel’s hand on his arm as he held him back.

“You don’t understand, Sidao,” Gerel cut in. “You never met the girl in question. If you had, you would not risk following her alone after she’d already spotted you either. But you weren’t there.”

Yunong pulled in a calming breath, grateful for his brother’s support. Gerel understood.

“No, you’re right, of course. I wasn’t part of… all of that,” Sidao acquiesced, a satisfied smirk still twisting his mouth.

“Enough of this,” the sergeant finally intervened with a sigh. “We’ll go to Chameleon Bay. But this had better not be a waste of my time,” he added, addressing Yunong directly, and there was a clear warning in his voice. The sergeant pivoted and headed off, and the agents all followed silently behind him.

Yunong bristled when Sidao cast him an almost gleeful grin as he passed, but he fell in behind his brothers with Gerel at his side. 

“It’ll be alright,” Gerel encouraged him, though he kept his voice low and tugged at his beard the way he always did when he was concerned. “We’ll find the girl and get to the bottom of this.”

“We have to,” Yunong muttered back. Days ago, he had dared to dream that his position within the Dai Li might be restored after he brought a dangerous wanted person to the mercy of the Earth King. If he failed, he now knew he would be lucky not to lose what little he had left. 

* * *

Azula breathed a little easier once the train reached the last station at the Outer Wall and they encountered no trouble exiting the city. Regular security stationed at the gate bid them safe journeys as they passed through an arched opening in the thick wall among the small group of travelers who had gone all the way to the last stop. The open gateway was a new feature, Azula noted. It even had flowering trees planted on either side along with the guards’ station, as if to make the entrance to the city more welcoming. Only a few years before, the only way in or out -barring a war machine- was through the enormous gates that could only be opened by earthbenders. She supposed it hardly made a difference now. She’d seen commercial airships and Earth Kingdom military craft alike passing over the city streets often enough in the last weeks. The new technology had changed everything as surely as the end of the war had. She briefly wondered if it would have been easier to smuggle herself aboard a passenger airship bound for the Fire Nation but ultimately determined it would have been futile. Certainly only the wealthiest and most important citizens would be afforded that mode of travel, and security would be tight. Still, she wistfully remembered the moment she first soared in her own airship, just before the invasion, testing the craft out. She remembered the fleeting exhilaration she’d experienced before she was forced to turn her mind back to matters of war. 

They descended several flights of stone stairs outside the wall, and Lek did not stop once they reached a dusty road through the fields that stretched out for miles before them. There were several shops and stands to their right, merchants likely making a small fortune offering the last food and travel necessities anyone leaving the city on foot was likely to see for a good while. Azula eyed a gated stall that contained several grazing ostrich horses, and a man who appeared to be the owner haggled with a traveler over the cost of his beasts.

“No ostrich horses for us today,” Lek commented as they passed, seeming to guess the direction of her thoughts. “We’ve got a much quicker and dare I say cheaper method of travel.”

“We do?” Azula queried as she kept pacing beside the man and wished he would walk faster.

“We do,” Lek confirmed. “I would just prefer for us to get away from our fellow travelers first.” He abruptly veered off the road, and Azula followed, utterly bewildered yet having little choice but to follow his lead. They walked until a rolling hill put a considerable distance between them and the road, and then he stopped. A boulder jutted from the ground in front of them, but Lek did not step over it. Instead, he stepped onto it and stopped again.

Azula stopped behind Lek and stared at him impatiently. “What are we doing? There’s nothing here,” she stated.

“Yes, there is,” Lek countered with a faint smile. “There’s the earth beneath your feet. Hop up.”

Frowning, Azula did as she was bid. The rock was large enough for both of them to stand apart, but they were still awkwardly close. 

“You can hold onto my shoulders if you need to,” Lek instructed, “but I need my arms free.” He pushed his glasses further up his nose, suddenly slipped off his shoes and tucked them into his satchel, and sank into a crouch. Into a _stance_.

Understanding dawned on her. “I must admit, I’m surprised,” Azula commented.

“What happened to not judging each other by our appearances, hm?” Lek teased her. His feet shifted and arms circled, and Azula jerked backward as the rock shifted out of the earth surrounding it. “I don’t want to force the issue, but you really ought to hold on,” he pushed, glancing over his shoulder at her. “Please don’t fall off.”

Grimacing, Azula reached out and gripped the man’s shoulders, bent her knees, and shifted her weight to her toes, bracing herself. 

“Ready to leave this city in the dust?” Lek asked, soil and pebbles crumbling off from around the boulder. 

“ _Please_ ,” Azula replied, and she closed her eyes against the dust that billowed in a cloud around them as Lek swung his arms and bent the earth to his will, launching them forward. She did not look back to see the walls of Ba Sing Se disappearing behind them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well. This chapter was originally meant to be only part of one chapter, but the story goes where it will go, and so I've had to divide the chapter I had planned up into two. I know the plot only inched forward in this very long chapter (sorry!!), but the upcoming few chapters should make up for that. I hope to have the next chapter out much quicker than it took to get Chapter 20 out, but I do appreciate everyone bearing with me! I also want to say a huge thank you again for all of the feedback, on the last chapter especially. I was really touched to see readers interacting not only with me and with this story but also with each other in the comments, it absolutely made my week!! That's the kind of stuff that keeps me going. Seriously, I cried. I have the most wonderful readers, and I'm very, very grateful for all of you.
> 
> On another, completely unrelated note: so far in this story when my characters have shared names with canon characters, it has been entirely on purpose because to me, name-sharing just makes sense! Hence we have the little girl in the village all those chapters ago (Mura) sharing a name with Mai's aunt and Azula eventually taking that name as her alias, and then twin Huan in Ba Sing Se sharing a name with Zaofu's resident emo metalbending artist. This time, however, the name-sharing was entirely coincidental. If you've read the Kyoshi novels (I haven't!), you probably recognized the (nick)name of our earthbender/smuggler's associate. I came across the name Lek while doing some research and looking for a name that fit the way I previously described the character and only after the fact did I discover that that name was already in use in the ATLA universe. Just a fun coincidence I wanted share with the class!
> 
> Last but not least: what do we think Ty Lee was trying to ask Azula before they were so inconveniently interrupted? 👀 I feel like it's fairly obvious but I'm curious as to how others will interpret that, so if you wanna speculate in the comments, be my guest!


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi readers! Thanks so much for your patience. Just a quick content warning before we dive in: this chapter contains a brief depiction of violence suffered at the hands of caretakers (nothing overly graphic) and a resulting trauma response. The warning might be superfluous given the nature of the very first chapters of this story, but as it’s been a while since Azula’s time in the asylum was depicted I thought it warranted a heads up.  
> Happy reading!

The expanse of Chameleon Bay sparkled deep and dark in the afternoon sun, but Azula could hardly see it until the cloud of dust cleared when Lek finally brought them to a halt at the edge of a low cliff just beyond the narrow beach. They were both covered in a fine layer of dirt. Coughing and mildly nauseated, Azula dug into her satchel to find the last of her water in her canteen and soothe her irritated throat. Lek hopped off the rock and used the inside of the hem of his shirt to clean his glasses. They had stopped multiple times on the way, allowing Lek to both rest and clear away the dust threatening to block his vision. Necessities, but ones which set Azula’s nerves on edge. The breaks were short, yet it still required great effort for her to refrain from anxiously demanding that they keep going. She didn’t want to raise any alarm, but she sensed that he was suspicious of her anyway. She couldn’t help looking over her shoulder at every turn.

“Here we are. Chameleon Bay,” Lek announced as he settled his cleaned glasses back on the bridge of his nose. “Not the cleanest method of travel, but certainly one of the fastest, wouldn’t you say?”

Azula shook her emptied canteen then shoved it back into her satchel. “I don’t care about the dirt,” she asserted, brushing absently at her clothing. “Let’s just get a move on.”

Lek raised a brow but did not comment on her impatience. Instead, he led her to a portion of the ledge that sloped down toward the beach less steeply and pointed out toward the water. “There they are,” he announced proudly. 

A wide dock that appeared old and dilapidated even from a slight distance jutted out into the gently lapping waters of the bay, and a modest-sized steamship rested along its end. At least a dozen men were scurrying back and forth down the dock, loading cargo and shouting at one another. 

“If you look down that way, you’ll see the river that would eventually lead you to Full Moon Bay,” Lek pointed out with a sweep of his hand toward the head of the bay. “There’s a little town not far from here as well, and a few small villages nearby in the countryside. They’re good places for people who want to avoid attention, so they tend to attract some rough company. And speaking of…that’s the _Sea Vulture_.” He pointed outward toward the mouth of the bay on the horizon where a ship cut through the water in the distance, far enough away that Azula would hardly have noticed it if not for the faint trail of smoke it left behind. “Seems they’ve set sail early,” Lek commented. “And _that_ is the _Silver Lily_ , Gamuo’s ship,” he added with a nod toward the ship still resting by the dock. “Well, they’re both Gamuo’s ships, of course, but-”

“I get it,” Azula cut him off. “I’m paying for a smuggler, not a tour guide. Can we go?”

“My apologies,” Lek replied with a curious lift of his brow again. “I didn’t realize we were in _such_ a hurry.”

Without another word, he started on the narrow path down the ledge that led to the beach, and Azula cast another glance over her shoulder as she followed _._ It was only then that she realized they were being watched. Just at the edge of the clearing they had traveled through, a man was sitting in a tree, seemingly observing them. Her pulse jumped before she realized he was a lookout. The man seemed to be grinning, and he waved at her. Azula scowled and turned her attention forward to find Lek looking back at her in amusement.

“We occasionally have problems with criminals around here,” Lek explained. “Can’t be too careful.”

“Aren’t _you_ the criminals around here?” Azula pointed out.

“That’s offensive,” Lek tutted in reply.

As they neared the dock, Azula immediately spotted a tall man standing near a diminishing stack of crates, doling out orders. He appeared middle-aged, broad-shouldered and barrel-chested. Dark hair hung past his shoulders, half of it pulled back from his face which sported a neatly trimmed beard. He was dressed simply but well, the black and olive colors of his tunic and vest complemented by a small gold hoop in each earlobe. _That_ was Gamuo.

“Cousin!” the man’s deep voice rang out when he spotted them, and he greeted Lek with a hug that nearly lifted the smaller man up off the ground rather than anything more formal. 

Lek coughed once Gamuo released him, and he deftly swiped at the dust he’d left behind on his cousin’s shirt with an apology. Gamuo hardly seemed to notice and did not appear to care.

“So this is our passenger?” Gamuo asked as he looked Azula over. 

“Mura,” Azula offered, and she promptly reached into her satchel and removed her coin purse. Gamuo caught it without blinking when she tossed it to him. He hefted the bag between his hands for a moment before handing it off to Lek. “You can count that on board. I was told there would be a passport as well?” he demanded, turning back to Azula. 

She produced the passport and handed it over, and Gamuo promptly held it up toward the sunlight, squinting at it. Azula fidgeted but resisted the urge to look over her shoulder again. 

“Hm.” It sounded approving, but Gamuo fixed his dark eyes on Azula again as he handed the passport to Lek as well, who immediately slipped it into a pocket on the inside of his vest. “Fire Nation capital, was it?” he asked, and when Azula nodded assent, he shrugged. “I suppose you’ll do. You won’t take up much space, and you don’t look like trouble.”

Azula offered a tight smile, but she caught the way Lek’s gaze narrowed as he glanced at her. “Are we leaving soon, then?” she asked, pivoting to observe as two men picked up the last of the nearby crates and carried them onto the ship. 

“Soon enough,” Gamuo replied with frustrating vagueness. 

“I’m sorry we missed the _Vulture_ ,” Lek commented. “Would have liked to see them off.”

“Ah, yes. Yin sent his regards. Captain Yin,” Gamuo clarified for Azula’s benefit, glancing at her. “Also a cousin,” he added with a grin. “We like to keep this business in the family as much as possible.”

Azula felt she might crack her teeth if she clenched her jaw any harder. Chattiness and a leisurely attitude toward time seemed to be family traits. “How nice for you,” she managed, and she heard the strain in her own voice. “If you don’t mind, Captain Gamuo, I would like to see exactly what I’ve purchased.”

“Certainly,” he agreed. If he noticed how anxious she was, he did not betray any sign of it. “Follow me.”

She fell into step behind Gamuo and Lek as they headed down the dock and up the gangplank onto the _Silver Lily_. Crewmen on deck stopped their work only long enough to let them pass, hardly taking any note of her. She imagined smuggled passengers were a common enough occurrence on their ships if Gamuo had a reputation for the practice. Down the steps into the hull and through a short hallway, they passed a number of small cabins and the galley and descended further still until they reached a dimly lit cargo hold so full of crates and barrels and stacks of timber that there were only two narrow paths through it. 

“I’m staying with the cargo?” Azula queried.

“The cabins are for my men, and they’re full. This is what you paid for,” Gamuo replied.  
  
“I’m not complaining,” she corrected him. “But what’s your plan for _smuggling me_ into the capital? You know, what I’m actually paying you for.”

Gamuo stopped short, turned, and grinned at her. “Not to worry. You’re mostly paying for your passage and for the fact that I don’t care who you are or whether or not you have a valid passport. Getting you into your destination shouldn’t be a problem at all.”

“How is that?” Azula demanded, crossing her arms over her chest as she looked between Gamuo and Lek. “This all looks very… _open_. You do realize that there are customs officials and soldiers in Capital City’s port?”

Gamuo raised a brow at her. “Of course I realize that. This is my livelihood. Let’s just say I have a good working relationship with some port officials. They usually don’t even bother coming below deck. But on the chance that we are boarded by officials who are, ah…sticklers for the rules, _well._ This,” he lifted an arm and swept it in indication of the freight surrounding them, “this isn’t the real cargo.”

“Show her the real cargo,” Lek urged, shoving his glasses up the bridge of his nose again as he glanced at Azula. “She needs to know what to do, just in case.”

Brow furrowing, Azula watched as Gamuo squeezed his way down the row toward the bulkhead at the end. A metallic creaking betrayed what appeared to be a solid wall when he pressed on it with both hands and slid it aside, revealing it to be a door instead. Azula winced as the sliding of metal on metal screeched when he slid the door fully open, and Lek’s features scrunched in equal discomfort. Gamuo turned and waved her forward.

Azula made her way down the narrow path through the crates with relative ease and stopped behind Gamuo, examining the door for herself.

“Clever, I suppose,” she commented as she followed Gamuo into a dark, cramped space behind the false bulkhead. They appeared to be near the bow of the ship, though it was difficult to tell in the poor lighting. Suddenly a light illuminated the space from behind her, and Azula glanced over her shoulder to see Lek holding up a small lantern. When she returned her gaze forward, she saw that the space was filled with several large metal tanks. Gamuo rapped his knuckles against the top of one, the lid of which surpassed Azula’s shoulders in height. 

“What is this?” she asked, curiosity piqued. 

“Live cargo,” Gamuo answered as he reached over and lifted the lid of the nearest tank. The lid creaked and groaned as he raised it up, and Lek squeezed past Azula into the space and held the lantern aloft over the tank.

Azula stepped forward and pushed up onto the tips of her toes to peer down into the tank. Innumerable eyes flashed in the light of the lantern, and Azula wrinkled her nose as she watched countless sleek, long blue fish slither and squirm and thrash in the water below her. 

“Blue eels?” she asked, lifting a brow as she looked up at Gamuo. 

“Chameleon Bay’s finest. They’ve always been a delicacy, but our wise and beloved King Kuei banning the harvesting and selling of them has made them a rare commodity,” Gamuo explained.

“Why would he do that?” Azula inquired. 

“Because he’s a fool. Because some _cultured_ idiot convinced him of _the symbolic value of the blue eel to the cultural heritage of the kingdom_ ,” Lek replied, mockery evident in his tone, “so he took it upon himself to ban them from trade.” 

“So you’re poachers as well as smugglers,” Azula surmised, turning her gaze away from the writhing mass of slimy bodies.

“ _Poachers?_ Our people have been fishing these waters and harvesting blue eels from Chameleon Bay for generations,” Gamuo retorted, as if he took offense to the term. “Then the king comes along and thinks he knows better than us. He thinks he’s _protecting_ them, but he isn’t protecting shit,” he spat. “He’s taking away people’s livelihoods and letting the bay become overpopulated besides.”

“We pay the local fishermen well for them,” Lek added with a nod toward the tank. “And _we_ get paid well by people who cater to rich palates all over the world.” 

Gamuo lowered the tank’s lid with a dull thud. “If we need to hide you once we near your destination, we’ll put you back here. The bulkhead has only been figured out once. After we’d already moved our supply, fortunately for us.”

“That was years ago. We were running different cargo then. Would have landed us in much more trouble than this would,” Lek remarked wryly.

Azula glanced around the dark compartment in the hull before she followed the men back out into the main hold. “I suppose this arrangement will do,” she asserted. 

“You suppose?” Gamuo laughed, crossing his arms over his chest. “This is what we offer. Take it or leave it.”

“I’ve already paid you. We have a deal,” Azula replied. “Now when are we leaving?”

“Just as soon as the men finish-”

Gamuo’s response was cut off by a whistle from the stairs at the other end of the hold. Frowning, the man pushed his way back down the aisle and peered up the staircase. “What?” he demanded. 

“We’ve got company, Captain,” a crew member’s voice wafted down to them.

“Who?” Gamuo demanded. 

Azula’s heart leapt into her throat. She knew it was a distinct likelihood that _they_ would figure out where she was going, but she had hoped against hope that they wouldn’t. Fleetingly, she wondered if Kyeph had been bribed or threatened into betraying her. Not that it really mattered in the end.

“Dai Li, if the dust is anything to go by,” the crewman replied. “Lookout said they’ll be on us in a few minutes.”

Gamuo whirled on Lek. “We’re paid up for the quarter, aren’t we? Why the fuck would they come all the way out…” 

He trailed off as he put the pieces together, his gaze turning sharply to Azula. Lek was already glaring at her. 

“You said you weren’t in any trouble. _You lied_ ,” Lek accused.

“I didn’t,” Azula retorted evenly. “I wasn’t at the time. Things change.”

“Get off my ship. _Now_ ,” Gamuo demanded, taking a threatening step toward her.

“We had a deal, _remember?_ ” Azula shot back, pushing past Lek to close the gap between herself and Gamuo in a few short strides. She had to lift her chin to look up into his eyes, but her voice dropped low with warning. “I already paid you. You _will_ uphold your end, or you will live to regret it.”

Gamuo glared down at her, sizing her up, appearing incredulous at her audacity. “Just who exactly do you think you-”

“We don’t have time for this,” Lek cut in, stepping up behind them. “Even if we throw her off the ship now, they’ll find her and know what we were doing. It’s too late. We have to hide her.”

Glancing at this cousin, Gamuo grimaced. “This is _not_ what I bargained for.” Despite his protest, the man reached over and placed a hand on Azula’s shoulder, propelling her back down the narrow aisle toward the opening in the bulkhead. “Get in there and keep your mouth shut,” he warned. “We’ll be lucky if we don’t all end up in prison.” He grabbed the edge of the open door and began to drag it closed behind her after she’d ducked back into the secret holding space.

Azula shot out a hand to stop the door just before it cut off the last of her light. “If you so much as consider turning me in, I swear to you, I will take you down with me,” she warned, her voice steady despite the way her heart felt as if it were pounding in her throat.

Scowling down at her, Gamuo pushed her hand aside and slid the door closed with a definitive _clang_. She heard his heavy footsteps retreating quickly down through the cargo hold, and then there was silence. Azula’s mind raced as fast as her heart. Lighting a flame in her palm, she held it aloft and surveyed her surroundings, desperate for any sort of cover. She couldn’t trust that the Dai Li would not find the hold, nor could she know if they weren’t already aware of it. Lek said it had been discovered once before, though he didn’t mention by whom. 

She could take cover behind the farthest tank between it and the sloping side of the hull, but that would not be good enough if they found the hold. She was already at a disadvantage due to the cramped space. 

Lifting her hand higher aloft, Azula observed the braces girding the deckhead above her and the large pipes running beneath them. She could try hoisting herself up onto the pipes, which would at least give her the advantage of higher ground, but it was still too exposed. She felt trapped, _caged_ , and she considered making a break for it instead and taking her chances fighting the Dai Li on open ground. 

An idea came to her then, and her stomach instantly twisted into a knot. She felt as though she were breaking out into a cold sweat as she reached over to the nearest tank and gripped the handle at the top. The lid creaked open as she lifted it, and droplets of saltwater landed on her face as the eels in the tank thrashed at the disturbance. It wasn’t the thought of being covered and surrounded by the slimy creatures that disturbed her so. It was _the water_.

Azula’s hands trembled as she reached into her satchel and removed her mother’s letter from the bottom of it. She clutched it for a moment before she bolted over to the nearest closed tank and hopped onto it. From there she caught a pipe running along beneath the deckhead and hoisted herself up, scooting along the length of metal until she reached a section where several smaller pipes joined and ran alongside the larger one. She stuck the folded letter tightly into a crevice between the pipes for safekeeping then dropped back down to the floor. The sound of footsteps thudded on the deck above, but she thought it might only be her own heartbeat thundering in her ears. She crossed back to the open tank and stared down into the inky, writhing water as her eyesight adjusted to the darkness.

It had never bothered her _before_. How many summers as a child had she spent swimming in the ocean tides beyond the beaches of Ember Island? How many strokes had she mastered that gave her confidence against the currents? How thoroughly had the Academy trained every last one of their pupils in safety and survival at sea? None of it mattered after _that day_. All she could think about was the water that stole her breath and her power on the day of the comet. The ice that immobilized her as her world crumbled around her. The flowing water. The grate. The chains. 

Something invisible wrapped itself around her chest and squeezed her, threatening to take her breath entirely, but Azula hoisted herself up onto the edge of the tank and swung her feet over the side anyway. Steeling herself despite the way her breath came in ragged gasps, she dropped down into the tank. Her cheeks were wet, and she didn’t know if it was the splash of the water as the eels reacted to her disturbance or if she was crying. 

She heard certain footsteps above her then. She had no choice and no more time. Not wasting another moment, Azula pulled the lid of the tank and let it drop down over her, and the world closed in around her as she sank into the roiling, living darkness of the water.

  
  


* * *

They emerged from a massive cloud of dust and dropped down the side of the ledge, landing in the sand of the beach almost silently, almost simultaneously, moving _almost_ as if they were all different parts of one body. 

Yunong knew better. He knew there was no such harmony among them any longer, if ever there truly had been. 

Someone coughed. 

_“You,_ ” Yunong called out, taking charge and arresting the attention of the two nearest members of the ship’s crew just as they bent to lift a single large crate off the end of the dock. “Stop moving. Hands out,” he commanded, eyeing the dagger strapped to one man’s belt. He positioned his arms to bend his gloves if need be as he glided toward the men. The rest of the Dai Li present swarmed behind him.

The men looked at each other then back at him, slowly straightening and lifting their hands in front of them. They appeared wary, yet neither alarmed nor surprised to see them. Their approach would have been hard to miss, Yunong thought grimly. 

The sergeant stopped beside the men and inquired after their captain, but Yunong waited for neither orders nor permission. He boarded the ship with Gerel on his heels, stopping when he spotted the rest of the crew on the deck. 

“We’re looking for a fugitive,” Yunong announced. “A girl. We have reason to believe she came _here_ , and-”

“What’s the meaning of this?” a man’s voice boomed. 

Yunong pivoted to see a large man ascending the steps from below deck, a smaller man close on his heels. He recognized the smaller man, as he’d been sent on collection rounds more than once in the years since his demotion. 

“Captain Gamuo, I presume,” Yunong intoned as he approached the larger man. “You and your ship are being detained until further notice.” He spun to face Gerel and the agents who had followed them on board. “Search the ship. _Immediately,_ ” he ordered. 

Gerel moved toward the crewmen, but the other agents looked to the sergeant first as he ascended the gangplank behind them.

“Go on,” the sergeant affirmed. His voice still held an edge, and Yunong could see the warning in his eyes. 

Jaw clenching, Yunong turned his attention back to the captain as the agents spread out over the ship. “We’re seeking a fugitive,” he repeated. “An informant named _you_ as a trafficker the girl was sent to.”

Captain Gamuo’s heavy brows shot upward. “What _informant?_ ” he demanded. “This is preposterous. I’m not a _trafficker._ You know what my business is here.”

“I don’t give a rat’s ass about your business,” Yunong snapped. “You were named. That’s reason enough for us to search your property.”

“Named by who?” the captain queried. 

“That’s _our_ business,” Yunong replied.

“Probably some competitor of mine,” Captain Gamuo scoffed. “Or someone who works for them. Someone who would benefit by destroying my business. And you just _believed_ them? Came all the way out here _for what?_ ” He snorted derisively. The man’s attention was pulled away by the sound of an agent ripping the lid off of a particularly large crate on the deck, and he scowled. “This is ridiculous!” he protested.

“I apologize for the inconvenience, Captain,” the sergeant intoned as he stepped up to them, but he only glanced at the man. His annoyance was evident, and his gaze was still resting on Yunong. The sergeant reached down and slowly brushed at the layer of dust on his uniform as he spoke. “We won’t take up too much of your time. Assuming, of course, that you’re not hiding anything.”

“I can assure you that I am not. Nothing you don’t already know about, anyway,” Captain Gamuo asserted. “You’re rather outside of your, ah, sphere of influence here, aren’t you?” the man added in a tone which Yunong decidedly disliked.

“Our jurisdiction is wherever _we_ need it to be, by the edict of the Earth King. Nothing is more important than the kingdom’s security, and we are here on a matter of security,” Yunong snapped before the sergeant could respond. “If you wish to continue operating your business both here and within the city walls, you _will_ cooperate.”

“Search my ship, then,” the captain replied. “I promise you, you’re just wasting your own time.”

Sidao coughed behind them. Meaningfully and deliberately. Yunong clenched a fist.

“Nothing here. Just regular cargo,” an agent called from the other end of the deck after digging through one of the crates. He hefted a large sack into the air and shrugged.

“You’re not smuggling _rice_. Where do you keep the real cargo?” Yunong demanded, his gaze narrowing.

The Captain hesitated for a moment then, and his brow furrowed. 

“I can show you,” the smaller man piped up from behind them. “Please. Follow me,” he added as he moved toward the stairs that led beneath the deck with a wave of his hand. 

“Stay with the crew. Don’t let anyone move,” Yunong instructed Gerel before he followed the small man below deck. The captain, the sergeant, and Sidao followed directly behind him, but the backup did not stop his heart from beginning to thump within his chest as they moved into the dimly lit halls below deck. In his mind’s eye, Yunong saw a crack of lightning in a cavern - the spell of awe inspired by a powerful spirit broken as it was struck down, falling to the earth in the lifeless body of a boy. He saw _her_ : resolute, unafraid, triumphant. His heart pounded, but he shook his head and steeled himself.

They reached a crowded cargo hold, and Yunong made note of the crates and barrels which might be large enough to hide a small person. He was determined that they would not leave without ripping open every last one, no matter how much the captain might cry about it. The smaller man stopped at the end of the makeshift aisle, curiously placed both hands against the bulkhead, and pushed. When nothing happened, he pivoted and offered an apologetic smile. 

“Captain?” 

A scowl still plastered on his face, the captain pushed his way to the end of the aisle and brushed his crewmember aside. When he repeated the smaller man’s action, the bulkhead creaked and eventually slid aside. 

“They don’t keep me around for my physical prowess,” the smaller man commented, and Yunong was dismayed to hear his sergeant chuckle in response. There was nothing amusing about the situation at all, and the sergeant’s affable attitude toward their suspects irked him, even if it was an act. 

Yunong stepped up to the opening of the compartment and squinted into the darkness. His pulse was racing, but he betrayed no sign of it as he pivoted to face the captain.

“Get me a light. _Now_ ,” he commanded. 

The large man’s eyes narrowed, and for a moment he wondered if the captain would dare refuse, or even to lay a hand on him. His fingers twitched at the ready.

“Here,” another agent who had followed them down into the hold offered, moving down the aisle with a lantern he’d removed from a metal ring near the foot of the staircase.

Yunong took the lantern from his brother without a glance his way, his steely gaze focused on the defiant captain. “Start searching the larger crates down here,” he ordered. He didn’t miss the way the agent cast a questioning glance toward the sergeant before he complied. 

“Go on,” the sergeant asserted, clasping his hands behind his back. He was speaking to both of them, Yunong realized. The agent who’d passed him the lantern nodded and promptly got to work ripping open the top of the nearest large crate, and the sergeant continued to simply stare at Yunong expectantly. 

The captain’s companion cleared his throat. “After you, sir,” the man offered, with a sweep of his hand toward the opened doorway.

Turning back, Yunong pushed up the brim of his hat slightly with his free hand and ducked to step into the dark hold. He swallowed as the lantern’s light cast long shadows along the sloping metal walls of the hull, and he frowned as he observed the looming shapes of the tanks that occupied most of the space. He was vaguely aware of the presence of Sidao and the sergeant behind him as he stepped further inside, and he briefly wondered if they could hear the way his heart hammered against his chest. Or perhaps they might even _feel_ it.

“What is all this?” Sidao queried.

Yunong held the lantern higher and observed the deckhead and the maze of beams and pipes beneath it. 

“Where we keep the real cargo, in case we should be met with any, ah, _unfriendly_ guests aboard our ship when we reach ports,” the small man replied, earning a snort in response from Sidao. 

“You must pay a small fortune to keep your guests friendly and happy,” Sidao commented.

The banter infuriated Yunong, but he moved between the tanks and cast his light in every dark corner of the hold. Each time he banished the shadows and found only more emptiness, his fear ebbed and anxiety rose to take its place. 

“It’s worth it to keep us out of trouble,” the small man replied amiably. “Believe me, sir, we have no interest in getting on _anyone’s_ bad side.”

“Hmm.” 

_That was the sergeant._ He sounded impatient. 

“What’s in the tanks?” Yunong demanded, whirling on his companions.

“Our eels,” the man replied. “You’re welcome to-”

Yunong reached for the nearest tank and yanked on the lid. It was heavy, and the metal creaked as it opened. He jumped instinctively as he was splashed in the face with cold water, and when he raised the lantern high over the tank, he saw only a writhing mass of eels and a hundred eyes reflecting the light back at him. The creatures thrashed wildly at his intrusion, and the inside of the tank smelled distinctly like a marsh. 

Gritting his teeth, Yunong let the lid slam back down as he stepped back. He thought he heard someone laugh softly, and he cast a baleful glare toward the shadowy figure of Sidao in the doorway before he moved to the next tank. And the next, and the next. Each a stinking mess of fish and saltwater. Finally, someone sighed. 

“Perhaps we ought to head back above deck and have a word with some of the crew,” the sergeant said wearily. It did not sound like a suggestion. 

“By all means,” the captain finally spoke up again. “Question my crew to your heart’s content, but I would appreciate it if you could get it over with quickly. They’re going to have to get busy repacking at least half of my cargo.”

Try as he might to hold it at bay, Yunong could not quell the creeping sense of panic that welled in him as he watched his chances grow slimmer and slimmer with each moment that passed in failure. Sidao smirked at him before he ducked back into the main room, and Yunong was the last one out. He cast the lantern in a wide arc around the covert hold one last time before he grimly followed behind the other men, praying that the girl might yet be found somewhere else aboard the ship. 

The captain slid the door to the compartment closed behind him, and to Yunong’s ears the reverberating _clang_ sounded like a harbinger of disaster.

* * *

  
  


Azula was frozen in place, the metal of the tank floor scraping at her back as she floated just above it. Countless eels slithered over her and around her, instinctively and hopelessly seeking cover even as they covered her. She could almost pity them if she were not so concerned with her own impending doom. Deprived of all of the air she exhaled in order to sink down to the bottom, her lungs _burned_. She wanted to scream. It took every last ounce of her will to keep herself from breaking, from pushing back to the surface and _breathing_ and facing whatever waited for her above. She counted the seconds since she sank deep below the surface after she heard the scraping of the bulkhead that warned her the hold was discovered. 

She tried to remember her record from the Academy’s water exercises…it was more than a minute, wasn’t it? Her mind wandered, desperate, trying to keep the rising panic at bay.

She was in a tub then, in a tiled room with a grate in the floor. Her chi was blocked, and she was powerless. She couldn’t breathe fire, or else she would have spewed it at the nurses just to make them _stop_. She could only scream, but her screams turned to choked sobbing as the women scrubbing at her scalp forced her head down into the warm water, rinsing soap and scented oil from her tangled and matted hair. 

_“Stop!_ ” Azula gasped when her head broke the surface again, water streaming down over her face. “ _Don’t-_ ” she choked on her protest, coughing, feeling as though she could scarcely draw a breath. 

“We have to. I’m sorry, Princess,” one of the women muttered as she worked, and she sounded as if she meant it, and Azula hated her most of all for it.

She could move her toes, she realized. They’d been at their task of cleaning and untangling her unkempt hair so long that she could feel the returning flow of her chi - _slowly_ , torturously slowly, like the trickle of a stream. 

When she could move her legs, she braced her feet on either side of the tub and gathered every ounce of her strength. The next time the nurse tried to push her head down beneath the water, she pushed back, throwing herself backward with a vengeance. Her skull connected with the nurse’s face with a satisfying _thump_. Someone shouted. Blood dripped into the tub, rivulets of red blossoming in the water, and the nurse who had apologized released her grasp on Azula and leapt to her feet, hands over her face, cursing. A Kyoshi Warrior burst into the washroom. Gloved knuckles connected with Azula’s ribs and collarbone, but the pain barely registered. One nurse rushed the injured woman out, and the remaining nurse swiftly pulled Azula out of the water. 

The injured nurse didn’t return until the next day, and her swollen mouth and nose didn’t return to their normal size for a week. They began washing her hair in a basin after that.

The seconds ticked on. Azula’s chest ached. She shivered, her muscles contracting instinctively, but she had no breath to warm herself against the chill of the water. She thought she heard voices, thought she heard the creaking of metal, distorted through the water. Long, slippery bodies slithered across her face. She couldn’t open her eyes, but she thought she could sense a faint light somewhere beyond her eyelids. She felt lightheaded and as if she might burst all at once. 

She’d lost count. It was more than a minute. She might have broken her record. _She_ might break if she didn’t breathe. She tried to remember why she tortured herself so, why she didn’t give up, get up, and _fight_. Her reasoning blurred as her lungs begged for relief. _Just a little longer..._

The sky burned a beautiful crimson, the tail of the comet painting the clouds that dotted the sky in shadows and brilliant hues of orange and gold. It looked so _warm_ , but she was frozen. She was trapped in ice, and she couldn’t breathe. Then the ice melted, and she was on her knees. She was drenched, in chains. She lingered in shock, unable to process what was happening to her. She was so cold, and all she could see beneath the inviting warmth of the bleeding sky was _them._ Something inside of her cracked. Hatred coursed through her blood, warming her. Panting, she filled her lungs with fury. She screamed, blue flames erupting from her mouth like dragon fire. She spewed her wrath and her grief, and the puddles surrounding her evaporated under her assault. When she was spent, she flung herself to the ground and wept. 

“Azula… it’s over…” Zuko tried when her sobs ebbed. 

“It will _never_ be over. _Never_ , do you hear me?” she spat, her promise tasting of the salt of her own tears.

When he tried to approach her, she kicked a burst of fire that nearly burned him. The waterbender tried to hold him back. 

“ _Don’t touch me!_ ” she roared when he came closer again. “You took _everything_ from me _._ I _will_ repay you in kind,”she hissed, venom dripping from her voice. “ _Even if it takes the rest of my life.”_

A third time her brother tried to approach her, and she lurched back up to her knees. She lunged at him, ignoring the painful strain in her shoulders as the chains holding her jerked her arms back. She felt as though she could tear his throat out with her teeth. Zuko backed away, and she bellowed fire again, screaming until her throat was raw and every last drop of water on the ground had been devoured by the flames. He finally sent the waterbender for help.

Was it nearly two minutes? The sense of panic had eased, leaving her feeling as though she could simply float away into the darkness of her memories. It was bizarrely peaceful. 

A thud reverberated through the water, and the spot of light behind her eyelids disappeared. Someone was speaking, far away, as if in a dream. Metal scraped against metal, and then there was silence. 

Azula felt for the bottom of the tank and pushed herself upward through the water and the squirming mass of eels, breaking the surface in the darkness, gasping for breath. Her head nearly collided with the lid of the tank in the small space between it and the water, but she didn’t care. She drew the fetid air into her lungs as if it were the sweetest and purest air in all the world. 

* * *

_I don’t know anything, sir._

_Never saw any girl_ _here._

 _A girl, on this ship?_ One crewman had laughed outright at them. _I think I’d remember if I saw_ a girl _on this ship._

 _Fuck, I haven’t seen a woman in_ months. _Captain Gamuo is a_ bastard _for keeping us at sea so long._

They had all laughed at that. And they were lying, all of them. Filthy, delinquent _liars._ Yunong could feel it. He wanted to break their smug faces. Perhaps a few shattered teeth would help them _remember_.

But the sergeant stepped in. The sergeant _ordered_ him to join Gerel in checking the last of the crates on deck. A few brothers rejoined them, having found nothing at all in the cargo hold. In the cabins, the galley, the furnace room, the washroom, the deckhouse, the bridge. Nothing. 

Furious, Yunong abandoned Gerel and his orders and moved back across the deck to where the sergeant questioned the crew. The sergeant shot him a sharp glance as he approached.

“Forgive me, sir,” he forced out, “but I believe you’re being _lied to_. We were told the girl was directed _here_. She had to have come here. They know _something_. We need to put this entire crew under arrest and bring them back to Ba Sing Se. It’s only there we’ll be able to get honest answers out of them.”

Scowling then, the sergeant opened his mouth but was cut off by the captain.

“May I ask a question? Since you’ve all seen fit to wreak havoc on my ship. Who exactly is this girl you’re looking for, and what’s she wanted for? It must be something pretty bad if you’ve seen fit to go through _all this trouble._ ” 

“That isn’t your concern,” the sergeant replied evenly, politely. “However, I will again apologize for the inconvenience, Captain. We must follow through on these matters. And I should ask, while we’re here,” the sergeant folded his hands into his sleeves as he carried on. “We’ve received disturbing reports in the city over the last year or so. Some say daofei activity is on the rise out in the provinces. Someone like yourself should be aware of such a situation, if it were true?

“Daofei?” the captain almost barked out a laugh. “Not to my knowledge. And as you say, sir, I should know. My residence may be in Ba Sing Se these days, but I’m rarely at home. Most of my men are from _here_ ,” he added, sweeping a large hand in indication of the bay, “as I am myself. We haven’t seen hide or hair of _their_ like in…well, I can’t even remember. Oh, of course there are little gangs of petty bandits roving around, but nothing that warrants any real concern.”

“Hm. Well, perhaps the sources of these reports are simply nervous,” the sergeant replied with a lift of his shoulders. “But we’ll be keeping an eye on the situation. And you should keep an eye on your back as well, Captain.” 

“I always do,” the captain replied evenly, offering the sergeant a knowing, conspiratorial smirk. “I’m surprised the Dai Li would concern itself with such matters, though, considering how full your hands must be in the city. What’s the king’s army doing these days, standing around scratching their balls?”

To Yunong’s dismay, the sergeant almost chuckled at the captain’s crass remark before he cleared his throat. He was not taking their current mission seriously in the slightest, that much had become apparent. He would rather stand about bantering with a suspect rather than doing his job. Sickened, Yunong felt again the sting of humiliation. To be brought so low, to serve _beneath_ such an unworthy colleague was almost unbearable.

One by one, the agents tasked with searching the ship filed silently back onto the deck. All empty-handed. The sergeant managed to pause his socializing with the ship’s captain long enough to notice. “Well, it appears we will be out of your way soon, Captain,” he commented.

“Thank you, Sergeant,” the captain replied with a slight bow and a smile. “You know, we had another ship docked here that set sail before you arrived. They’re well out to sea by now, but as a favor to you, I could try to catch up with them at their first port. Have them check the ship for stowaways. That does happen from time to time, you know. Should they find someone, I’ll have them contact the proper authorities immediately. I would need to be leaving _soon_ , though, if I’m to have a hope of catching up.”

“Hm. Yes, by all means, do that,” the sergeant replied. “But should you find someone, don’t contact any local authorities. Get a message to us directly if you can. I appreciate your cooperation.”

Yunong could hardly believe what he was hearing. It was as if the sergeant did not actually _want_ to find a dangerous fugitive who had nearly wrought the downfall of their entire organization. 

“By all means, sir. I’ll get a message _directly to you_ should we find anything,” the captain agreed, and there was an undeniable magnetism in the authority of his deep voice. The sergeant appeared entirely duped by it.

Yunong could stand the farce no longer. “But, _Sergeant-_ ” 

“I think we’re finished here,” the sergeant snapped, whirling on him as he cut him off.

Yunong looked between the sergeant’s stern visage and the captain’s in disbelief. The captain crossed his arms over his chest and simply watched them. 

He tried again. “Sergeant, you can’t possibly-” 

“Off this ship. All of you. _Now,_ ” the sergeant commanded, pushing past Yunong and giving an expectant tilt of his head to the rest of the agents who had all assembled on deck. “My apologies, again, Captain,” he addressed the captain with a curt bow before heading for the gangplank. One by one, the rest of the Dai Li agents followed him. “You may carry on with your business. Someone will be by your shop next quarter, as usual.”

“Of course. We’ll be expecting you,” the captain returned, offering a half smile and an approximation of a bow in return. 

“Wouldn’t miss it,” the smaller man who had approached the captain’s side intoned dryly.

Yunong was the last to leave the ship, his steps leaden as he moved past smirking sailors and followed his superior back to the sandy strip of beach. Once they were beyond earshot of anyone on the dock or the deck of the ship, he tried again.

“Sergeant, something isn’t right here. There’s no way-”

“You’re right. Something isn’t right here,” the sergeant interrupted, turning to face him. “I warned you not to waste my time, and that’s exactly what this fool’s errand has turned out to be.”

“So the girl wasn’t on the ship,” Yunong argued. “Perhaps she _did_ board the other vessel, and we ought to send a ship after them ourselves to make sure rather than trusting those criminals to do anything about it. She might not have left the city yet at all. Or perhaps she simply hasn’t yet made it out this far. We’re a long way from the city. We could set-”

“We could send Yunong here to go scour the countryside himself, since he’s _so convinced_ he wasn’t merely seeing things,” Sidao suggested from behind him. “And when he’s turned over every pebble between here and Ba Sing Se, he can get to work terrorizing every citizen in the city until he finds his little fugitive princess,” he added, his voice oozing with derision.

Yunong gritted his teeth but ignored the man. “We ought to _at least_ have every agent on high alert. Shut down exit from the city, like I suggested _earlier_. And inform the Earth King that-”

“ _Inform the Earth King?_ ” the sergeant repeated, his eyes widening in disbelief. “Have you _lost your mind?_ ”

“He needs to know that-”

“He _needs to know_ that the Dai Li is competent and loyal. _That’s all_.”

“But what better way to prove both than to bring him the Fire Princess?” Yunong argued. “Think of what it would do for his trust in us if we brought him the person who deposed him and threatened his life. And if we managed to take her alive, think of how _pleased_ he would be to have a pawn in his custody to give him an edge in his dealings with the Fire Lord.” 

“ _Oh_ ,” the sergeant replied, nodding. “Oh yes, how brilliant. I hadn’t thought of _any_ of that before I came all the way out here. What a pity we _don’t have any fucking Fire Princess to bring to him_ , then, isn’t it?”

He was being mocked. Disgust was evident on the sergeant’s face as he went on.

“Yes, by all means, let’s go upset the king with the news that a dangerous enemy may be lurking within his city walls, and that we don’t have that enemy in custody, nor do we have have any fucking clue where she actually might be, and in fact she may have escaped already! Let’s shut down the city and cause panic and chaos while we tear the city apart looking for a needle in a haystack.”

“The Council, then,” Yunong argued in desperation. “Inform the Council. Let them make the decision. The king will never need to know.”

“Inform _the Council_ , who dislike and mistrust us even more than the king?” the sergeant scoffed. “And imagine they won’t tell him? You know as well as I do that that isn’t how things work anymore.”

“But-”

“ _Sidao,”_ the sergeant barked.

“Sir?” Sidao answered obediently, stepping up beside Yunong.

“What is the purpose of the Dai Li? It seems some here might need a reminder.”

An infuriatingly smug smile pulled at Sidao’s lips as he responded. “The Dai Li exists to preserve peace and _order_ in Ba Sing Se, Sergeant.”

The sergeant nodded. “Order. The exact opposite of what you are suggesting, Yunong. You seem determined to sow chaos, and I suspect your motivations are _personal_.”

Yunong hardly realized he was clenching a fist. “ _You were there too_ , Sergeant,” he intoned low, his gaze narrowing. “You followed my lead the same as all the rest.”

A muscle twitched in the sergeant’s face, and Yunong could see the anger sparking in his eyes at being reminded. He had not been one of the men chosen to leave Ba Sing Se, and his current status was doubtless a result of his eagerness to throw himself on the mercy of the new order once Ba Sing Se was retaken in the name of the Earth King. But it didn’t matter. It _shouldn’t_ matter. At the moment of truth that day in the Earth King’s throne room, he’d made the same choice as every other man who stood by and watched their leader be humbled before the Fire Princess.

“Be that as it may,” the sergeant replied, voice tight with restrained anger. “The future is what matters now, and tearing the city apart in search of imagined phantoms from the past will not preserve order or promote peace, nor will it promote the Earth King’s trust in our organization.”

“It’s not _imagined_ ,” Yunong shot back. “I saw-”

 _“Enough!_ ” the sergeant finally snapped, turning aside and beckoning the rest of the agents with a sharp wave. “You’ve wasted enough of our time and resources, not to mention embarrassed us. We are finished here. We are returning to Ba Sing Se immediately, and I don’t want to hear another word-”

“ _Coward_.”

Someone sucked in a sharp breath. The sergeant pivoted back immediately, glaring at Yunong. 

“ _What_ did you just-”

“You have a lot of nerve, Yunong,” Sidao cut in, stepping between him and the sergeant. “Calling our sergeant a coward when _you_ are the one who failed to follow a target because _you were afraid_.”

He knew he had crossed a line, that he ought to rein in his temper, but in the moment Yunong no longer cared. “You’ll get out of my face this instant if you know what’s good for you, you sniveling little bastard,” he hissed. 

“Yunong, _don’t_.” Gerel was at his side then, trying to step between him and Sidao.

Sidao grinned in his face. “It’s little wonder you don’t see the importance of keeping order within the city when you apparently can’t even keep order within yourself, Yunong.”

Yunong hardly realized what he was doing until he heard Gerel shout, felt his partner grabbing his arm and dragging it back down before he could send a rock glove flying into Sidao’s face. Sidao merely raised his brows and glanced expectantly toward the sergeant, whose fury was evident in his features as he stepped up to Yunong. 

“Wastefulness. Failure to follow protocol. Disrespect. Disorderly conduct. _Making fools_ of the Dai Li. I have had _quite enough,_ ” the sergeant practically growled. “When we return to the city, I’m recommending you for dismissal and decommissioning.”

Momentarily stunned into silence, Yunong felt Gerel release his arm and step away from him. Tension hung thick in the air, and from the corner of his eye Yunong saw several of his _brothers_ position themselves as if preparing for a fight. As if to take him down.

“Sir, you can’t… I apologize for-”

“It’s too late for all of that,” the sergeant snapped. “You are clearly no longer fit for this organization. You will return to Ba Sing Se with us and _cooperate_ through the process, or it will go _much worse_ for you,” he commanded. “Turn over your gloves to me. Immediately.”

Yunong swallowed, and his mouth felt dry. _Dismissal_ meant failure, disgrace, and likely poverty. _Decommissioning_ meant…. 

He remembered everyone that had ever stared at him wide-eyed in terror as they were strapped down, as their minds were invaded, their wills overridden. He had never been moved by their pleas.

“Sir,” Yunong tried again, a rasping edge to his lowered tone. “ _Please_. I have a child. A little boy. His mother is ill and may not have long to live. Making sure he is cared for is my responsibility. How am I supposed to-”

“Your personal indiscretions are not my concern,” the sergeant interjected, his upper lip curling. “I suppose you’ll have to figure out how to make a life for yourself and your child just like everyone else in the city. I’ll have your gloves,” he added with an outstretched hand. “ _Now_.”

Desperate, Yunong turned to look for Gerel. His partner had taken several paces away from him. His _brother_ stared at the ground, visage shielded under the brim of his hat, arms folded into the sleeves of his robe. Refusing to even look at him.

 _So that’s how it is_. Despair washed over Yunong as he realized that not even his closest compatriot would stand up for him now. He was truly alone. If he fought, he would lose. He would lose so much more than his job and his memories of the Dai Li. They would kill him. It was over. 

Slowly lifting his hands, he bent the tiles of rock to release the gloves from his hands. The sergeant pulled them to himself before promptly handing them off to Sidao. Yunong’s stomach churned. 

“Your cooperation is noted,” the sergeant asserted with a nod. “I won’t arrest you, so long as you continue cooperating. Don’t give me any trouble, and you have nothing to fear. Everything will be over with soon enough.” 

“ _I_ _gave my life to the Dai Li,_ ” Yunong uttered, half in shock, speaking as much to himself as to the sergeant.

“And the Dai Li thanks you for your service,” the sergeant replied curtly. “Move out!” he barked to the rest of the men, turning his back on Yunong.

Gerel glided past him, and Yunong caught his eye. He could see the regret therein, the guilt even, but it meant nothing. They were brothers no longer, even if he had not yet _officially_ been expelled from the Dai Li. The bond was broken.

Sidao stopped beside him as the others moved past. 

“Don’t worry too much, Yunong,” he intoned as he placed a hand on Yunong’s shoulder. “They say it doesn’t hurt if you don’t fight it.”

Yunong hardly noticed the sickening mockery of sincerity in Sidao’s voice or the heaviness of the hand on his shoulder, despite his hatred of the man. In the moment, Sidao was no more than a gnat buzzing in his ear. 

He pivoted to look out over the bay, watched as smoke began to unfurl from the stack of the ship. Impotent fury gripped him, and in his mind’s eye he saw a smiling girl in green with smoke curling from the tips of her fingers. _She_ had taken everything from him. Soon, he would lose even his memories of her. Robbed of both his life’s purpose and his hatred, there could be only emptiness awaiting him on the other side. 

  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  


Azula lost track of time entirely as she remained crouched in the tank, ready to drop below the surface again if need be. Ready to fight if forced to. Able to breathe again, she could at least attempt to warm herself as she waited in the darkness. An eel flopped near her face, slapping her with its tail and splashing water into her eyes. She grimaced as she rubbed at her eye with a knuckle, weighing the risks of getting out of the tank. If they came back to the hold and she could not hide herself again in time, the torture she forced herself to endure to escape them would have been for nothing. Her life or her freedom might be forfeit, and even if she could fight them off long enough to escape, the absolute confirmation of her presence would ruin all of her plans. They might already be ruined, if someone decided to send word to the Fire Nation ahead of her. But that was a chance she would have to take. 

A rumble ran through the ship, and the walls of the hull creaked and groaned. She was familiar with that sound, and her heartbeat picked up again as she dared to allow herself to hope. They were preparing to move. Still, she waited. 

When it felt as though nearly an hour had passed and the sloshing of the water in the tank indicated that the ship had almost certainly left the dock, Azula decided to take her chances and pushed open the heavy lid of the tank. She pulled herself over the edge, her clothes and satchel dragging with the weight of the water they carried. She closed the tank, then shook her head and sent droplets flying from the short ends of her hair before she began to wring out her clothing as best she could. She meant to dry herself at least to mere dampness and burn away the telling puddle of water outside the tank before she took cover somewhere drier as a precaution, but the distinct sound of footsteps and voices in the outer cargo hold sent her scurrying before she was ready. She instantly threw her sopping satchel over her shoulder and leapt onto the tank, hoisting herself up onto the pipes beneath the deckhead and crouching there, balanced on the balls of her feet. She extended one arm toward the floor, palm at a right angle. Her other arm she drew back, hand curled into a fist, ready to bathe the hold in a volley of fire should the wrong people appear.

The metal door creaked, screeched, slid aside. The light of a lantern appeared.

“It doesn’t make any sense. _Where the fuck_ could she have disappeared to?”

That was the captain’s booming voice. Azula let out her breath.

“Maybe she escaped through a porthole?”

Lek followed the sound of his voice into the hold, and Azula could see him squinting into the darkness as he held up the lantern. She lowered her arms

“Unless she grew gills and swam all the way out of the bay underwater, there’s no way one of them wouldn’t have seen her if she tried to escape the ship,” Captain Gamuo replied sarcastically. “And you took a hell of a risk just bringing them down here like that.”

“What was I supposed to do?” Lek argued. “They know we’re smugglers. They know we _hide things_. I thought at the very least, if they discovered her, we might have had a chance to claim she was a stowa-....”

Lek’s voice trailed off, and he held the lantern over the puddle of water in front of the tank she emerged from. Though still wary of the potential for some sort of trap, Azula decided she had heard enough. She reached over into the crevice where she had hidden her mother’s letter and pulled it out, tucking it safely between her chest and her bindings before she pushed herself off from the beam and landed on the lid of the tank below with a dull thud.

Both men jumped, curses startled out of them.

“So, you were planning on giving me up as a stowaway, were you?” Azula intoned, squinting against the light of the lantern as Lek raised it before her face. Her own heart was still racing, and she felt almost lightheaded, but the smugglers looked as though they had seen a dark spirit.

“ _Fucking...flying hog monkeys!_ ” Gamuo spluttered. “Where _were_ you?” he demanded, stepping closer.

“You can hardly fault us for that,” Lek retorted after drawing in a shaken breath. He adjusted his glasses and tilted his chin to look up at her as she stood up straight. “ _You brought the Dai Li down on us_ , after you promised me you weren’t in any trouble. We’re all lucky not to be in prison right now.”

“I take it that means they’re long gone, then?” Azula demanded sharply. Logically, she knew they were, but she needed to hear it anyway.

“Of course they are,” Gamuo scoffed. “We’re already halfway out to sea. Now answer my question, where-”

“She was in the tank,” Lek surmised, cutting his cousin off as he pointed at her dripping satchel. 

Azula jumped down from the tank, paying only a little mind to the uncomfortable way the puddle made her already soggy shoes _squish_ as she landed. “I was in the tank,” she confirmed, pushing a wet section of her fringe out of her eyes. “It _reeks_ in there, and I think I swallowed baywater,” she added with a grimace.

Gamuo blinked down at her in the lantern light. Then his scowl disappeared, and he began to laugh. Great, loud, shoulder-shaking laughs. He held his stomach and nearly doubled over. 

“She was... _in the tank_ …with the fucking eels! And they just…” Gamuo gesticulated broadly, as if mimicking something or someone. When Lek managed a small smirk and a chuckle as well, his cousin slapped him on the back. “She was _right under those bastards’ noses!_ ” the captain guffawed.

Momentarily stunned by the captain’s abrupt laughter, Azula could only stare. Before she realized it, a grin was tugging at the corners of her own lips, and a short, breathless laugh escaped her. Relief flooded her as her anxiety and the torment of the ordeal she forced herself through waned, the reality of the situation finally settling in. She escaped. She beat them. She _won_. 

“ _You’re all lucky_ I came up with a better plan than just sitting here waiting for them to find me,” Azula remarked as the captain’s laughter died down and he wiped at his eyes. “And you’re lucky none of your men ratted,” she griped. Her words lacked any real bite of sourness they might have otherwise carried. She was too relieved to have come through such a precarious situation unscathed to be angry.

Captain Gamuo straightened up fully at that, and he shook his head emphatically. “That was _never_ a concern,” he argued. “My men are loyal.”

“Besides that, none of us are stupid enough to make a habit of selling out our passengers. Nobody likes a rat, let alone does business with one,” Lek added.

“I am curious, though,” Gamuo pushed. “What exactly did a little thing like you _do_ to make the Dai Li hunt you down like that?”

Azula crossed her arms over her chest and shivered. “That’s a personal question, not a pertinent one,” she replied with a glance toward Lek. “Seeing as how they no longer pose a threat. Now if you don’t mind, I’m miserable and would like to take a bath and dry my belongings.”

Gamuo nodded. “There’s a washroom near the cabins. You can put your things in the furnace room if you’d like. Should dry them up fast enough.” 

Azula frowned. She had no intention of bathing in a facility clearly not designed with anyone other than the crewmen in mind. “Yes, I noted the _common_ washroom on the way down here earlier. Tell me, captain, do _you_ utilize the common washroom?” she inquired with a lift of her brow.

The captain raised a brow as well. “What business is that of yours?” 

“So that’s a _no_ ,” Azula surmised. “Considering how I ended up in this state as a result of your poor planning as a smuggler, I request use of the captain’s personal facilities for the duration of this trip.”

Gamuo snorted. “You’re lucky I don’t toss you overboard even now for almost getting us in deep shit with the Dai Li, and now you want to use my personal facilities?” 

“Consider it an offering of goodwill,” Azula countered, dropping her arms and squaring her shoulders. “Or a measure to ensure that I won’t commandeer your entire ship. Whichever you prefer.”

The captain barked out an incredulous laugh. “ _Commandeer my ship?”_ he scoffed.

“You heard me correctly,” she affirmed with a nod. 

“I don’t know who you think you are, young lady, but you-”

Lek cleared his throat. “Captain, if I may? Considering that, as we just discussed, the Dai Li _did_ come out all this way looking for her…for reasons unknown to us...perhaps it wouldn’t be much of a sacrifice to allow her use of your facilities? I don’t think it’s very considerate of us to expect a young lady to share that space with the rest of the crew, anyway.”

Azula clasped her hands behind her back and offered Lek a smile. “Lek is a very sensible man, Captain. What do you say?”

Captain Gamuo eyed her up and down, scowling. “I say you’re much more trouble than what we bargained for, and you talk a big game for such a small person. But I suppose my cousin is right. I’ll vouch for the honor of every man aboard my ship, but your comfort ought to be considered too. You may use my facilities, but you’re still sleeping in the cargo hold. Don’t get any ideas.”

“That’s perfectly fine,” she agreed. “I’ve no need of a comfortable bed.” She had not had the pleasure of a soft bed in more than half a year, and even before then her life had afforded her plenty of occasions to learn how to live with discomfort. A few weeks sleeping in a cargo hold would be nothing in comparison.

The captain grunted. “Alright then, let’s get a move on. Do what you need to,” he instructed Azula. “We eat at sundown. You show up on time or you go hungry. The men on galley duty don’t have time to wait around for stragglers. Oh, and that’s another thing. You’ll be expected to take on galley duty just like everyone else.”

“He does mean _everyone_ ,” Lek interjected. “You can take your first shift with me tomorrow, I’ll show you the ropes.”

Azula nodded her assent and moved to exit the hold.

“Ah, wait,” Gamuo stopped her. “I nearly forgot with all of the… excitement. We have a little tradition on the _Silver Lily_. Given the circumstances, I think you should be a part of this one.” The captain stepped over toward the first tank, lifting the lid with ease and beckoning her over. 

Brow furrowed, Azula glanced at Lek, who was suddenly grinning at her. 

“Go on,” he encouraged.

“Pick one,” Gamuo instructed when Azula stepped back over to the tank. He inclined his head toward the thrashing fish in the water.

“Why?” she asked. 

“Tradition,” Gamuo repeated.

“He just doesn’t want to handle them and figured you might as well since you’re already dirty and smell like the bay,” Lek laughed. 

“Just for that, _you_ can take one to the galley,” Gamuo shot back at his cousin. Turning his attention back to Azula as she peered over the edge of the tank, he explained. “Cook always fixes one for the first meal of each voyage. They’re _delicious_ when done just right. Special treat for the crew.” 

“And the other?” she inquired.

“Back into the water,” the captain answered. “Second chance at life and all of that. Eels are elusive things. As are you, it seems,” he added with a sly grin. “They protected you. You get to pick.”

She quirked a brow as she glanced up at the captain. He was an odd man, as was his cousin, yet Azula was suddenly struck with the certain sense that Iriya would like both of them. She decided in that moment that she liked them too. 

Azula pressed up onto the tips of her toes and reached down into the tank without looking, leaving the choice to fate. She pulled out the first eel she closed her hands around and held it tightly as it squirmed in her grip. Gamuo closed the tank behind her, and she followed Lek out of the hold while Gamuo closed the space up behind them. Wincing internally when she noticed the crates in the main hold that had been unceremoniously opened and their contents dumped in the search for her, she decided not to draw any further attention to the matter as she followed the men up toward the deck. 

When they emerged into the late afternoon sunlight, Gamuo wasted no time in drawing the attention of the crewmen present on the deck. 

“She was in a tank with the eels!” the captain announced, as if it were the culmination of a joke, and the crew broke out into a chorus of raucous cheering and laughter. Someone whistled in a way that sounded like the ascent of a firecracker.

Azula could not help but let her spirits lift like a gull on a sea breeze as she followed Gamuo past a dozen grinning faces and felt their exuberance wash over her along with the cool breeze of the bay. He led her to the port side near the bow and waved an arm out over the water. 

“Whenever you’re ready.”

“What about _the speech?_ ” one of the crewmen called out.

“What-... oh, right, the speech! Can’t do it without the speech,” another man chimed in.

Holding the eel up toward the edge of the ship with both hands, Azula pivoted and glanced at Gamuo. “There’s a speech?” she asked with uncertainty. It seemed silly, but it would be rude to ignore a part of their tradition. 

Arms crossed over his chest, Gamuo was glaring at the two men who had spoken up, and she noticed one elbowing the other in the ribs while they grinned at her.

“There’s no speech,” she concluded with a scowl directed at the crewmen, earning another round of laughter from them. They were laughing at her, yet strangely, she was not bothered by it as she ought to have been. Their laughter did not feel malicious.

“Just throw it in the water before we’re out of the bay,” Gamuo instructed with a weary shake of his head, as if he were burdened with errant children. 

Azula complied, lifting her arms higher and tossing the lucky fish into the water. Leaning over the edge, she watched the creature slither away deep below the surface, a flash of brilliant blue disappearing into the dark water. Behind her, the men clapped and joked until the captain ordered them back to their duties. 

Closing her eyes for a moment, Azula inhaled deeply and allowed herself to appreciate the kiss of the sun against her skin. The feeling was ruined by the wind whipping the ends of her damp hair painfully against her cheeks, and she opened her eyes. The shoreline was a distant shadow, and soon they would be beyond the mouth of the bay, into the open sea.

Unbidden, she thought of the last time she had been sailing away, leaving Ba Sing Se far behind her. How _hopeful_ she had been for the future then. She recalled Zuko asking her how she could give up the chance to sit upon the throne of the Earth Kingdom and administer the rule of the city herself. He didn’t understand. She had never cared about Ba Sing Se, nor about sitting on the throne. It had only ever been a means to an end for her. She wanted her father to be proud of her and deem her worthy. She’d wanted to please him. 

She’d lain awake all night before they departed Ba Sing Se, imagining her homecoming. Imagining her father welcoming her home as a hero and - _foolishly_ \- as a beloved daughter. She was happy then, willing even to share her glory with Zuko. Confident that his return would not outshine her own or otherwise threaten her path to the throne. She’d worked so hard to bring him back, not only because he served as a convenient buffer against the chance of her failure. Somewhere deep in her heart, she’d been happy to have him home. And naive enough to truly believe they could share a future. 

It didn’t last. Nothing ever did. Back in the Fire Nation, in the suffocating grandeur of the royal halls, under the crushing weight of their father’s gaze, _how quickly_ everything had fallen apart. Desperate, Azula kept the promises she’d made to her brother in Ba Sing Se then destroyed them in the next breath, willing to expose him to shame and failure to save her own face. Defecting, Zuko exposed her lie and exposed her to Ozai’s wrath. The seeds of fear and mistrust had been sown between them long ago, but they were watered anew by betrayals. Her hopeless loyalty to their father strangled the life out of whatever small chance might have once existed for them. 

But for an instant in time as brief as that flash of blue in the water, sailing home to the Fire Nation with Zuko and Mai and Ty Lee at her side, she had been happy. In the end, that was all happiness was, wasn’t it? A fleeting feeling. Mere moments that vanished like the flame of a candle snuffed out by the wind. That was all it ever could be. 

“First level, end of the hall.”

Azula turned to find Gamuo approaching her, and she raised a brow. 

“The captain’s quarters, of course,” Gamuo clarified. “It isn’t locked. Don’t touch my things, and remember what I said about supper. If you’re late, you don’t eat til dawn.”

“I appreciate it, Captain,” Azula answered, inclining her head in a brief bow as she straightened up and stepped past him. Her own mind had dampened her mood, but the prospect of a warm bath was enough to buoy it, and she caught the captain’s muttered words just as she headed off the deck. 

_“Commandeering my ship!_ Of all the fanciful nonsense.”


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: detailed depiction of substance (tobacco, alcohol) use and very mild indications of internalized homophobia as a byproduct of Sozin-era bigotry and discrimination enshrined into Fire Nation law (“That guy was the worst!” Korra said it best). Fic tags have been updated accordingly.

Golden light poured through the little porthole in the washroom as the sun dipped ever nearer the horizon, and Azula dallied in the tub in the confined washroom adjoining the captain’s quarters, heedless of the sinking sun’s warning that she would lose her supper if she tarried too long. She might not mind so much if she did, though her stomach grumbled at the thought. She was exhausted, and the warmth of the bath soothed her aching body. Cupping her hands in the water, Azula wet her face and ran her fingers over her skin, scrubbing gently, finally kneading her temples with the pads of her fingers. She’d made careful habits over the last years of cleansing herself without ever needing to submerge her head.

She recalled discussing the _incident_ that she was painfully reminded of earlier in the day with Doctor Ido. Or at least, his attempt at discussing the incident with her. After much prying, she eventually confessed the fear that drove her to assault the offending nurse. Doctor Ido claimed to understand yet prattled on with some nonsense about exposing oneself to the source of a fear. She replied simply that the next time someone laid a hand on her that way, she would kill them. An empty threat, given her restraints, but Doctor Ido paid heed. She remembered wishing even then that she hadn’t been pushed to making such a threat just to have a simple request respected. And she _was_ afraid. Irrationally so, she knew, but she could not help the panic that seized her at the prospect of being totally submerged in water and unable to breathe. 

Or could she? Being forced into it by someone else’s hands, with no control of her own body, incited a violent reaction. Being forced into it by circumstances like earlier in the day made her feel sick with panic, but she had endured it because the alternative was worse. Suddenly, Azula found herself wondering if there might not be something to the theory expressed by Doctor Ido after all…if the circumstances were different…if _she_ was in complete control…

Briefly, Azula gripped the cold edges of the tub to steady the tremors in her hands. She could feel her heart beginning to hammer in her chest at the thought, but she could do it. Her mouth went dry, but she could do it. She _would._

Inhaling deeply, Azula released the edges of the tub and slid downward, allowing the world to close in around her as she slipped beneath the surface of the water. 

She lingered as long as she dared. She breathed out beneath the water, held herself steady. When she could no longer hold it, she surfaced, and breathed, and did it again. And again. And again. Beneath the water, with air in her lungs, she focused, she breathed out, she felt the energy in the water’s warmth around her. Again and again she surfaced then pushed herself underwater, beating back the dread with the force of her will. Her hands still trembled, and her stomach clenched, but each time it grew easier, and her chest swelled with a sense of pride.

Finally, when the waning light from the porthole threatened her with going hungry, she stopped her experiment and quickly finished washing her hair. Stepping out of the tub, she realized she had nothing with which to dry herself apart from the clothing she’d worn from Ba Sing Se, which sat in a pile on the floor still damp with brackish water. Azula wrinkled her nose as she picked up the garments and dropped them into the water for a quick rinsing before she drained the tub, determining to find a better way to clean them later. She would simply burn them if she had more options. As it was, she slid open the door to the washroom and stepped into the captain’s quarters, leaving small wet footprints as she padded across the room to the brazier. She’d taken the liberty of lighting it upon entering the captain’s cabin and had washed her only other articles of clothing in the tub before herself and set them out before the brazier to dry. 

Azula bent down and picked up her maroon tunic, now so well-worn by years of use and abused by her months of travel in the Earth Kingdom. A wistful smile curled her lips as she ran a fingertip along the stitching at the shoulders which she had eventually allowed Iriya to let out for her once it became clear that all of her training and her chores were only going to make the fit tighter and restrict the movements of her arms, a feeling she despised. Iriya’s stitches were tight and even, but even they had not held up perfectly under so much wear. 

Feeling a few spots of the tunic still damp, Azula laid it back down beside brazier and checked her bindings, her shoes, and the faded, dusty rose trousers. She pivoted and looked around the room. It was clear the Dai Li had left no part of the ship undisturbed, but she refrained from righting any of the furniture or picking up any of the papers or items from an overturned altar in the corner. Gamuo had asked her not to touch his belongings, after all. She was struck by the fact that in the search for her an agent had so needlessly upset even a small altar that clearly held some meaning for the captain. The Dai Li seemed to her now a collection of cruel, petty bastards, yet she grimly remembered that it was that very viciousness which had once so impressed her. How things had changed.

 _She_ had changed, on the outside as well as within. Azula caught a glimpse of herself in a circular mirror implanted into the opposite wall, and she turned and approached it, heedless of the water dripping to the floor behind her. Her short, wet hair clung to the planes of her face. She had lost mass in the last months, her muscles shrinking with her inability to train and uncertainty of where each next meal was coming from. She still felt strong enough, but she missed _home_. She missed mundane chores and training at will and hot meals at Iriya’s table. She missed Iriya. Her throat worked, and the backs of her eyes stung. Perhaps her greatest foolishness had been in ever thinking she needed to leave in order to seek peace. The choice had almost been her downfall, and it might yet be. 

_But you survived._

Azula inhaled. There was no one else with her. No other face staring back at her in the mirror, no tricks of her mind. The voice in her head was her own, just as it always had been.

_You survived. You’re alive. You’re still fighting._

It wasn’t only the Earth Kingdom and the streets of Ba Sing Se that she had survived on her own, nor even the Dai Li. She’d been brought down at what was meant to have been the pinnacle of her life. Her crowning moment. She’d been abandoned and imprisoned and tormented. She was coaxed into almost doing the unthinkable, all for a false promise of freedom, a return to the _trap_ that her old life had been. She was disgraced and humiliated. She’d lost her friends and her family one by one and was left alone in the world, ready to end it all. Ready to end herself. 

_But you’re still here_.

Azula lifted her palms before her, and the light of the flames she ignited reflected on her skin as she looked at herself in the mirror. She thought of her father, who prized her and praised her for her fire. Once, nothing had mattered more than earning his approval. To be rejected by him was the worst thing she could have imagined, because if he did not love her then no one else would. 

_He never loved you, but you’re still standing_.

She was born lucky, he’d said once when she was very young. She’d been so proud then, and so foolish. _Born lucky. Blessed by the gods. Touched by Agni, chosen by the very god of fire._

Those were his words, all honeyed lies. 

If the gods were real, where were they when their _favored daughter_ was chained to a grate, broken and screaming? _Where was her father?_

Had any god risen with her before dawn each day from the time she was small, training and studying until body and mind were raw? Had they sacrificed friends and family and their entire childhood in a fruitless pursuit for their nation’s glory? Had _Agni_ picked up the shattered pieces of her left in the comet’s wake and mended them back together one by one? Had her father looked at her when she was brought before him in chains and cared at all what had become of her?

 _No._ If the gods were real, they were as cold and distant as Ozai. Perhaps they were simply nonexistent, just like his love. 

Or perhaps that was unfair. Ozai’s idea of the gods seemed curiously _like him_ , choosing favored children and abandoning them just as easily. Maybe the gods had simply been twisted and corrupted beyond recognition. A means for the ends of men, their true natures lost and perhaps never to be found again. Just like her.

Azula looked down at her hands, at the fire dancing in her palms, mesmerized. If fire was a gift, as Iriya said, then she could not see it as a gift from beyond the heavens. It seemed to her a gift of nature, grown and cultivated carefully like a garden. It was an extension _of her_ , fed by the air that filled her lungs, by her energy, by the chi flowing through her body made of water which would someday burn to ash and be returned to the earth.

 _Someday_. But not today, nor any day soon if she had a say in the matter. Azula lifted her gaze to her reflection once more and watched the blue flames flickering in her eyes. She took in the planes of her face and, traveling downward, every hard line and soft curve of her body. For once, perhaps for the first time, she felt as though she was seeing only herself. Not her mother’s face staring back at her. Not a _perfect_ princess. Not a hollow shell of a girl, ready and waiting to be used for someone else’s purposes. Not a vessel for a god’s power or a nation’s glory, for a grandfather’s legacy or a father’s ambition. 

Just herself. 

  
  


* * *

  
  


The sun disappearing past the starboard side of the bow told her they were already heading southwest. The distinct bite of a chill in the evening air reminded her that summer was past. It would be harvesting time in the Fire Nation. Azula stifled the prick of guilt that nipped at her, hoping that the youth from Laijee who had taken up Iriya’s offer of work were still at her side even though she felt an undeniable sting at the idea of anyone having taken her place. It pained her more to think that the plan might have failed and Iriya might be left alone with her work. 

_I’ll be home soon_ , she promised the wind. _So long as nothing else goes wrong._

“What’sa matter, you don’t like eel?”

Azula blinked and looked up at the crewman sitting to her right. Hien, as he’d introduced himself. He had a wide smile and a habit of waving his utensils in the air to emphasize his words when he spoke. He’d narrowly missed stabbing her with them when she first sat down beside him. 

She would have remained below deck, but the cook wouldn’t hear of it. After she’d dressed and cleared her belongings out of the captain’s cabin, she was the last to get her meal - a steaming serving of eel grilled in a sweet sauce atop a generous bowl of rice. It smelled so delicious that her stomach growled. She’d tried to simply sit down with her meal on one of the benches in the mess hall outside the galley, but the cook seemed aghast that she would eat alone and insisted she join the crew on deck. She reluctantly obliged.

“No, it’s perfect,” Azula replied, sticking her own utensils back into her half-finished bowl. “I just have a lot on my mind.”

Hien nodded and went back to his conversation with a crewmate, and Azula realized there was no reason she ought to have eaten alone. She found herself being treated as neither a guest nor an outsider, rather as just another member of the crew. They were gathered near the bow, the whole crew present except the cook and the men on duty, seated on repackaged crates around a brazier. It was cold on deck, but Azula didn’t mind. The bowl of food warmed her hands, and the crackling fire in the brazier burned brighter at her silent command. No one seemed to notice the unusual strength of the fire against the sea wind.

Azula finished her meal in silence, but she tuned in to the conversations happening around her. Most of it was mundane, discussions of past events or journeys or women or families back home that were of little interest to her. 

She could hear Captain Gamuo’s deep voice from several seats away despite the rest of the chatter. He mentioned several ports from the southern and eastern coast of the Earth Kingdom to Kyoshi Island before he began listing ports in the Fire Nation. It seemed his route would take them from Kyoshi Island to Shuhon Island before they would move on to the capital. Azula tried to curb the sense of impatience that welled up in her as she listened to him. 

Someone came up from the galley balancing a tray with steaming cups of tea to pass out to the rest of the crew before collecting the used bowls and utensils. 

“Well, the Fire Nation tends to be our best customer these days,” Gamuo was saying as he passed cups of tea down the line and around the circle until everyone had one in hand.

“That’s because they’ve become so _soft_ ,” someone commented, earning a laugh from the rest of the crew.

“In some places blue eels - prepared certain ways - are considered...ah, a fertility aid,” Hien informed Azula sagely, as if he was being helpful.

“Maybe they wouldn’t need it so badly if they hadn’t turned into such-”

Someone slapped the man speaking upside the head before he could finish his thought.

“There’s a lady present, idiot.”

“ _What?_ I’m only saying. Can you imagine any other Fire Lord paying reparations to the Earth Kingdom?” the first man protested.

“We should be grateful the current Fire Lord is so soft,” Lek scoffed. “War isn’t good for business.

“At least not _our_ business, anyway,” Gamuo commented. “Nobody is interested in luxury in the instability of war, and at least the seas are far easier to navigate now.”

“Well it’s not as if you aren’t blessed with an experienced blockade runner in your midst,” another man cut in, inviting a few friendly jabs with his boast.

“We make do, whatever the circumstances. Adapt and survive,” Gamuo asserted with a shrug. 

“You were a soldier in the war?” Azula inquired casually, glancing between Gamuo and the man who claimed to have run blockades.

The man laughed, and a few others joined him. “A soldier? _Spirits_ no, though they certainly tried to conscript me. They never could. I did a few blockade runs years ago during the siege, but it was for the benefit of _our_ village. Not at the behest of the Earth King or anyone else for that matter.”

The man didn’t seem to know that King Kuei had been utterly unaware of the war until it arrived on his doorstep, and Azula wondered if it was a matter of the the man’s provincial origins or if the Earth King had managed to keep the extent of his prior ignorance and reliance on his Grand Secretariat a secret from the public at large. 

“I suppose it’s not very noble of us to admit to having largely sat out the war, but…well,” Gamuo shrugged again. “Trade is vital, war or no war. People still need to make money. People still need to eat.”

“And we still need to make money. So we can eat,” Lek laughed. “I’ve hid my bending as much as possible for most of my life,” he added. “Likely would’ve ended up conscripted and stuck on a front line somewhere long ago if I didn’t.”

“ _You_ on a front line?” a man jested. “Now you know you need to be a full grown man for that. They weren’t putting children on the front lines.” 

Lek rolled his eyes to the chorus of a few laughs.

“Lek is a talented bender,” Azula asserted, almost surprising herself by speaking up at all. “And a strong one. I made the mistake of judging him by his appearance when we met. Though, to be fair, he did the same to me first.”

“Oh, well, _excuse me_ ,” the crewman who’d teased Lek intoned playfully. 

Lek offered Azula a half smile across the fire and lifted his cup of tea as if in a salute.

“None of you were soldiers, then?” Azula inquired, leaning forward and looking around the circle where she was met with shaking heads and a refrain decidedly to the negative.

“Where did you say you were from, again?” a man seated next to Gamuo asked. He was looking at her curiously.

Azula narrowed her gaze. “I didn’t.” 

“But you’re heading to the Fire Nation capital,” the man stated.

Azula glanced toward Lek, wondering if the entire crew already knew her business. “Yes,” she affirmed.

“Is that where you’re from?” the man pushed. He showed no sign of hostility, but the line of questioning raised Azula’s guard.

“I’m from Yu Dao,” she replied carefully. 

“But not _originally_ ,” the crewman pushed, raising a brow at her. “I have an ear for accents. We dock near Yu Dao a few times a year. I’ve spent enough time in the city to know.”

Azula contemplated the man, then glanced toward Gamuo. The captain had crossed his arms over his chest and was regarding her with equal curiosity. 

“No, not originally,” Azula finally admitted after weighing her options. “I’m a Fire National, if that’s what you’re looking for. Is that a problem?” she asked sharply.

“Not unless you intend to make it one,” the man answered easily, seemingly unperturbed. 

“No one here cares where you’re from,” Captain Gamuo cut in evenly. “A paying customer is a paying customer. You paid for safe passage, that’s what you get.” 

“Fair enough,” Azula replied, exhaling softly. 

“Were _you_ a soldier in the war?” Hien inquired, nearly sloshing hot tea into Azula’s lap as he gestured toward her for emphasis. 

“The Fire Nation didn’t send women to fight,” someone scoffed.

Hien ignored him. “Well, did you serve domestically then? Ah, well the war’s long over now. You look too young to have been a soldier,” he added as he squinted at her in the firelight, as if correcting himself.

“Yes, I was too young to have been a soldier,” Azula agreed to shut down the line of questioning, though the irony of her affirmation had a distinctly bitter taste on her tongue. 

Hien seemed not to notice her discomfort, and his blunt questioning might have been taken as rude if not for the distinct air of innocence he exuded in his curiosity. “Did you lose anyone?”

_Yes. Everyone._

Azula shifted in her seat. “Yes. Just a cousin,” she replied shortly.

“Oh. I’m sorry,” Hien offered.

She shrugged. “He was significantly older than me, and I hardly knew him. I was very young when it happened.”

Gamuo and Lek exchanged glances, and Azula realized that her indifference might appear strange to cousins as close as they appeared to be. She had no intention of attempting to explain. How could such a closely knit family possibly understand?

The captain cleared his throat to dispel the momentary, awkward silence. “How old are you, anyway?” Gamuo inquired before he twisted in his seat and reached behind his crate to pull up a large pipe of polished bamboo. 

Azula paused for a moment, having forgotten the passage of her own birthday not for the first time in recent years. “Nineteen, this summer past,” she replied.

“Hmph,” the captain grunted. 

“That’s rather young to be all on your own in a foreign country running from the Dai Li,” Lek commented casually, though she sensed the shrewd workings of his mind in the remark.

“Personal, not pertinent, remember?” she quipped.

“You can’t blame us for being curious about what the Dai Li wanted with you,” another crewman commented bluntly.

“Alright, leave her be,” Gamuo commanded. 

The man held up his hands in surrender. “I guess it doesn’t matter, what with the way the captain here managed to charm Sergeant Bastard right off the ship.” Several men laughed encouragingly, and he carried on. “I even thought you might kiss him at one point, Captain,” the man teased.

Gamuo snorted. “You insult my taste.”

Intrigued, Azula turned her attention to Gamuo. She had imagined the crewman’s remark was a cutting jest, yet the captain was entirely unfazed. She watched as Gamuo ignored the ensuing jokes and laughter and removed a small pouch from his belt. He pulled open the strings and reached inside, pulling out a pinch of something brown. Some sort of dried plant, it appeared. Gamuo rolled the leaves between his fingers before packing the little ball into a small bowl extending from the pipe which he had settled between his knees.

“Spark rocks?” Gamuo asked, and a crewman reached into a pocket and passed the small green stones. 

The man seated beside the captain tried to light the little bowl, but the sparks failed repeatedly. Cursing beneath his breath, Gamuo sent someone to the galley for a reed.

“What is that?” Azula asked, drawing Gamuo’s attention with her inquiry. She was as curious about the plant as she was the process.

“Give it a moment and you can find out for yourself,” the captain replied with a grin. “You don’t smoke after a good meal in the Fire Nation?”

Azula quirked a brow and shook her head, though she realized she had no way of really knowing if that was true. She didn’t suppose her life in the palace had afforded her much knowledge of the ways of commoners even in the Fire Nation, and she had not spent nearly enough time in the northern villages to know the habits of the people there with any certainty.

“Strange,” someone commented. 

Before she could answer, the man sent to fetch a reed returned and stuck it into the brazier. When it lit, he cupped a hand around the end to protect it from the wind and brought it to Gamuo’s pipe, but the wind snuffed out the flame before the substance caught fire.

Gamuo cursed again, and Azula chewed on the inside of her lip before she made a quick decision. They all knew her national origin thanks to Lek and the man with the ear for accents, and a display of her power on a ship full of strange men could hardly hurt. Pushing to her feet, she walked over to the captain, focusing on her breathing, readying herself for an exercise in control and precision.

“Do they also not practice waiting your turn where you’re-”

Gamuo’s complaint died on his lips when Azula sparked a steady orange flame from the tip of her finger. Staring down at the captain, she set the substance in the bowl ablaze and stepped back.

Though clearly taken by surprise, the captain wasted no time in placing his mouth over the end of the pipe. He removed his mouth and blew out a puff of smoke, then blew into the pipe and expelled the burned plant from the bowl at the end. When he inhaled again, the pipe whistled with a distinctly watery sound. Gamuo turned his head aside and exhaled a cloud of smoke. When he turned back, he rested a narrowed gaze on Azula while he lifted his cup and took a lingering sip of his tea.

“I knew it,” Lek said. He smirked at her from his seat beside the fire, seeming proud of himself. 

“I doubt that,” Azula countered, stepping back and pivoting to return to her crate. 

“Well, I knew _something_ was up with you,” Lek amended. “Even before the Dai Li came after you.”

Azula glanced around the circle, noting the shift in the atmosphere. They were all staring at her unabashedly, yet she still did not sense a hint of malice. Curiosity, certainly. Perhaps caution. But no one seemed upset to have a firebender in their midst. 

“Hey, where are you going?” the man beside Gamuo asked as she sat back down. He was holding the pipe while the captain rolled another little ball of leaves and stuck it into the emptied bowl for him. He raised a brow at her expectantly and grinned as he held up the pipe. “This thing isn’t going to light itself, you know.”

Azula stood up again and approached the man, obliging his request. If it could have been considered a request. The man moved through the process much the same as Gamuo, step by step, and when he was enveloped in a cloud of smoke he smiled up at her and thanked her while passing the pipe on to the next man. 

“Well shit, we should have gotten ourselves a firebender years ago!” 

She didn’t note who had made the crack, but it didn’t matter. Several crewmen voiced their agreement until someone pointed out the impracticality of kidnapping a firebender.

“I meant _hiring one_ for the crew, you fool,” the first man shot back, and everyone laughed. 

“Fuck, did you ever think about how much easier it would be to run the furnaces with a firebender on board?” 

“No, I’m sure you’re the first one to have ever thought about that.”

“You want a job, kid?”

Azula merely raised a brow at the man in front of her who asked the question as she extended a hand and touched the flame at her fingertip to the pipe’s bowl.

Captain Gamuo cleared his throat again. “ _I’m_ the only one who will be offering anyone jobs around here, thank you very much.”

The sea breeze dissipated the smoke quickly, but Azula caught a puff to the face more than once before she was finished helping each man in turn light the pipe. She rubbed at a watering eye as she finally returned to her own seat. Hien was the only one who refused the activity, citing its disagreement with his head. 

“What does that mean?” she asked as she sat back down on her crate.

“Why don’t you try it and find out?” another crewman suggested, holding the pipe out toward her.

Brow furrowing, Azula observed the instrument and the faces staring back at her around the fire. Once she would have detested the mere idea of the habit, but the men who partook seemed relaxed, happy even. Unwise as it seemed to test an unfamiliar substance in the midst of strangers, she noted that no one appeared in any way incapacitated after their turn. She had already drank herself nearly to a loss of control once while alone and friendless in Yu Dao, after all, when her hopes had dwindled lower than the coins in her purse. Much as she’d always hated drunken fools, she hadn’t known when she was young what might drive a person to such behavior. 

She drank for the first time in Laijee the summer she turned seventeen, during a festival, with the security of Iriya at her side. Iriya assured her that she would be alright if she took it slowly and informed her that firebenders possessed a natural resistance to the effects of toxins. So she’d sat at a table outside of Tekai’s butcher shop and sipped sake, cautiously at first, but soon with an enthusiasm that had her older companions advising her to slow down. With her initial reluctance overcome, she was freed from the burden of her own mind, if only for a little while. It was a pleasure, tempting and inherently dangerous. A mild headache the following day was a bearable price to pay, yet the suspicion that she might have made a fool of herself kept her from indulging too frequently thereafter. 

Azula reached out and took the bamboo pipe as it was passed to her and was met with an encouraging round of cheers.

“If you feel like you’re going to retch, please do it _that way_ ,” Hien joked, pointing toward the men on the other side.

“Swear on my grandmother, I’ll throw you overboard if she vomits on me,” one retorted.

“You’ll be fine,” Hien laughed when he noticed her grimacing hesitation. “Probably. You won’t vomit if you take it easy. Here,” he added as he took the little pouch that was passed next. He reached inside and pulled out a pinch of the dried plant, rolling it into a ball and stuffing it into the bowl while Azula watched him. 

Azula stared at the pipe in her hands for a moment, suddenly feeling foolish and self-conscious. She’d observed the process multiple times already, but with a dozen pairs of eyes watching her in amusement, she found herself forgetting what she was meant to do entirely. 

“Light the bowl and breathe in. Blow it out, then blow into the pipe and blow the burnt leaves out. Then inhale again. And don’t overdo it your first time,” Gamuo instructed, as if sensing her confusion. 

Azula almost changed her mind, but with the crew watching her and a flame already flickering above her finger, backing out seemed childish. And she had never been one to back down from a challenge before…

Without further hesitation, she lit the packed bowl and placed her mouth over the pipe, minding Hien’s advice to seal it as best she could. She breathed in, and the smoke filling her mouth and hitting the back of her throat made her cough. Hien reached over and covered the mouth of the pipe with his hand for her while she spluttered. Some of the crewmen were laughing, but it felt like encouragement.

“Easy. Blow it out now,” Hien instructed, giving her a pat on the back as he removed his hand from the mouth of the pipe.

Azula complied, blowing into the pipe until the burned embers of the plant blew up and fell down to die out upon the deck.

“Now inhale. _Slowly._ ”

The pipe whistled when she did, and she fought the urge to gag as she breathed in smoke. When she finally removed her mouth from the pipe and breathed out, she bent forward and coughed, smoke pluming around her head.

“I don’t feel any…”

Someone was laughing again.

“Oh, spirits, she’s going to keel over. Catch her,” Lek’s voice drifted from _somewhere_.

The urge to cough was entirely forgotten all at once. Her head was suddenly swimming, enveloped in a cloud. The sensation spread from her head as a prickling, tingling sensation down through her body, and she couldn’t _think._ She felt as if she were floating, somehow dizzy and sick and euphoric all at once. She felt unburdened and free.

Someone’s hand was on her back, steadying her, and eventually the feeling ebbed, leaving only a pleasant sort of buzzing around her head. Then her stomach lurched, and for one horrifying moment Azula felt that she might actually retch. That feeling passed as well. A fortunate thing, as she didn’t think she would be able to stand up steadily and move to the side of the boat if she tried.

“Not half bad for a first timer,” someone was saying.

“Sometimes they puke or pass out cold.”

“You’re alright,” Hien’s voice buzzed in her ear. “Take it easy. Here.”

He was pushing a fresh cup of hot tea into her hands, and Azula simply gripped it for a moment. She felt the heat of the fire radiating toward her face and the cup of tea warming her hands and the cool night air rushing into her lungs as she inhaled, and her gaze wandered upward toward the stars glittering in the inky sky.

“Feels nice, doesn’t it?” 

Azula nodded, careless of who had asked, and she lifted the cup of tea to her lips to take a lingering slip while she noted the brilliance with which the stars of the Dragon’s Tail stood out from all the rest. The buzzing in her head slowly, regretfully ebbed, but she was left with a feeling of calm and serenity.

“What’cha looking at?” Hien asked.

“The Dragon’s Tail,” Azula replied, pointing up at the constellation that could guide a lost ship back home to the Fire Nation on a clear autumn night.

“The _what?_ ” 

“It’s right there.” She lifted a hand and pointed. “See? The triangles and then the long line?” 

“That’s not a _dragon_ ,” Gamuo scoffed, craning his neck to look upwards. “That’s the Rabbit’s ears. And that line of stars you’re claiming is a dragon tail is the neck of the Cranefish. Two completely different constellations.”

“It’s a dragon,” Azula repeated lazily, her face bathed in steam from her lifted cup. 

“You’re in the clouds and don’t know what you’re talking about,” Gamuo shot back, insistent but with a barely suppressed grin. “I’ve been a man of the sea for more than twenty years. I ought to know.”

“Still a dragon,” Azula muttered into her tea.

“Well, I think it’s just a matter of our new friend here having, ah, a different cultural background than us. So, it can be both,” Hien offered.

“Thank you for that insight, Hien,” Lek replied dryly, but he was smiling as well. 

“Alright, I’ve had enough of you all for one evening,” Gamuo grumbled. 

The crewmen all took their cue to stand up, stretch, yawn, and collect themselves to head for their cabins or their night shifts. Azula followed suit, though the deck spun a little as she stood up. 

“I got you,” Hien offered as he took Azula’s emptied cup from her hands with a wink. “Watch you don’t fall down the steps,” he added before he headed off and disappeared below deck. 

“I’m checking in on the bridge before I turn in,” Gamuo said to Lek, and he pivoted toward Azula before she could leave the deck. “I assume you know your way back to the hold?”

“I do. Goodnight, Captain. Lek.”

“Rest easy, troublemaker,” Lek replied. 

Azula found her way back down to the cargo hold with ease, and when she arrived found crates and barrels still opened and overturned, their contents dumped unceremoniously across the floor of the hold. It seemed no one had gotten around to cleaning up after every mess the Dai Li left behind. 

Her body ached and cried out for sleep, but with sigh Azula knelt down and began picking up sacks of rice and flour, repackaging and restacking crates of products she couldn’t identify, trying to set the hold to rights one small section at a time. 

Nearly half an hour passed before she heard heavy footsteps descending into the hold, and Azula pivoted after she tossed a sack back into a crate to find the captain entering the hold with a blanket and pillow in the crook of one arm and a large, heavy beige canvas folded over the other. 

“I thought you’d be asleep by now,” the captain remarked as he glanced around the half-tidied hold with lifted brows.

“So did I,” Azula replied wearily.

“I didn’t ask you to do any of that,” Gamuo said.

“I’m aware,” Azula said with a shrug. “But it _was_ on my account that your ship was turned upside down, so.”

“Hmph. Well, it’s getting late. Give it up for the night,” the captain instructed. He moved past her into the hold and set down the blanket and pillow then set to work extending the canvas between two pillars. Ropes and metal clasps dangled from each end, and the captain took care securing the hammock to the cross beams overhead with the added security of an intricate knot around each pillar.

“Old-fashioned way. Can’t very well sleep on a crate, now can you?” Gamuo added when he noted Azula watching him work. 

“You’d be surprised,” she quipped. 

The captain snorted, and when he finished setting up the hammock he pressed the blanket and pillow into her arms. 

“Thank you, Captain,” Azula said, suddenly so exhausted she felt as though her eyelids were made of lead.

He grunted an acknowledgement. “Maybe we’ll put you on the furnaces for a while tomorrow, if you’re up for it. Breakfast is at dawn. Sleep through it and you-”

“I know, I know, I go hungry,” she mumbled, turning and stuffing her pillow into one end of the hammock.

“You learn quickly,” Captain Gamuo remarked, and without another word he left her to the solitude of the cargo hold.

Azula climbed up into the curve of the hammock and allowed it to envelop her, covering herself with the blanket and sinking into the strange sensation of the suspension. The hammock rocked gently with the motion of the ship and her attempts to get comfortable, and when sleep finally descended, she dreamt of dragons soaring freely in the sky and eels escaping deep into the sea, and of a little home nestled far away in the mountains with a warm fire crackling in the hearth and a weathered motherly hand tousling her dark hair.

  
  


* * *

The days aboard the _Silver Lily_ passed more swiftly than Azula anticipated. She expected her anxiousness to have her feet firmly planted on Fire Nation soil again would make the days drag, but she was kept busy enough most days that the hours slipped by and each dawn brought her one step closer to her destination. 

The crew of the _Silver Lily_ certainly had a role play in the swift passage of time, loathe as she was to admit it even to herself. Azula found herself enjoying their company more often than not, and to her surprise found that she liked being treated as if she were a member of the crew herself. The ship operated like a well-trained body, each crewman with jobs to do and a role to play, and they easily integrated her as part of it. She found herself eager to work if only to stave off boredom, though there was nothing particularly challenging about keeping the furnaces lit or scrubbing pots in the galley. The work was a simple necessity to keep the ship operational, and Azula noted that even the captain was not above getting his hands dirty alongside any member of the crew, much as the men might tease him for his typically impeccable dress. She was struck too by the way the crew spoke to their captain in general. As if he was one of them, just another member of the ship’s body with his own role to play, neither above nor beneath them despite his title and position. They respected him, because he respected them.

Azula fell into the habit of joining Captain Gamuo on the bridge at least once per day, at first under the guise of giving the courtesy of asking permission for the use of his facilities before she took advantage of it, but when the captain gave no indication that he was bothered by her presence on the bridge, she dropped the pretense altogether. 

Sometimes when she appeared, Gamuo would send his first mate on a break and tell her stories of his sailing days as a younger man in between explanations of the various functions of the ship’s instruments. Azula let him talk and pretended to know nothing at all of the subjects at hand, unwilling to invite more curiosity or questions about herself. She did listen, however, and she learned far more than she had learned in a school text or even by occupying the command decks of her own ships in years past.

She enjoyed Gamuo’s stories, though she suspected some of the tales were rather embellished. Sometimes his stories were less fantastical and more personal, anecdotes about life in the provincial countryside of the Earth Kingdom and the streets of Ba Sing Se. 

They docked in several ports along the southern coast of the Earth Kingdom, and one morning after breakfast as they neared the coast of Kyoshi Island, Azula found herself leaning against the forward wall of the bridge with her hip, idly gazing out the window to observe the deck below and sea before them while Gamuo prattled on with one of his stories. He caught her full attention when he casually mentioned a former relationship with another man, the captain of a ship he worked on when he was a mere crewman himself, cutting his teeth and learning the trade.

“A word of advice,” Gamuo said, wielding an apple in one hand and a small paring knife in the other which he pointed at her for emphasis. “Never, ever mix business and pleasure. It’s a very bad idea.”

Azula stared at him, taken aback by the nonchalance with which he mentioned something so personal. She recalled the jest made her first night on board regarding the captain’s _charming_ of the Dai Li sergeant and realized it was not quite the baseless joke she had imagined. Fidgeting, Azula turned her attention back to the window and squinted against the sunlight that poured through the glass. Gamuo did not appear to note her embarrassment.

“Well you can’t have _that_ kind of relationship with someone who is technically your superior and boss, no matter how hard they might try to treat you as an equal. It just doesn’t work. But I was young and ignorant then, I’m not too proud to admit. I learned the right lessons, though,” the captain went on, his attention fixed on the apple in his hand as he deftly cut off a slice and offered it to her. “Treat your crew with respect, and as equals as much as is possible, but there are certain lines that should not be crossed.”

Azula cleared her throat and looked at him again as she reached over to pluck the apple slice off the end of the knife. “I…noticed that you don’t treat your men very much like a captain should,” she remarked.

“Oh, you think so?” Gamuo retorted as he cut a slice of the apple for himself. “And what would you know about it?”

“Let me rephrase that,” she amended. “You don’t treat your men the way I imagine the average captain would.”

Gamuo shrugged and cut another slice. “It works for us. I don’t think lording over subordinates is effective. Not to mention that half of the crew are related to me in some way or other, which does bring its own set of complications,” he added with a laugh. “My grandmother is very little and very old, but she wouldn’t hesitate to beat me with her favorite walking stick if she got wind of mistreatment of any of my relatives simply because I hold the title _captain._ ”

Azula found herself smiling at the mental image of a tiny old woman beating the strapping captain with a stick. She bit into her slice of apple and savored the sweetness of it for a moment before she chewed and swallowed. 

“But of course,” Gamuo went on with a sharp glance her way, “if you think you know better, by all means. _Commandeer my ship_ and show me how it’s done.”

Azula cleared her throat. “Now that you mention it… that _was_ fanciful nonsense, actually,” she asserted as she gingerly dabbed the tips of her fingers on the hem of her tunic. 

Gamuo raised a brow. 

“I couldn’t have commandeered your ship. Well, no, let me be precise. I _do_ possess the skills necessary to successfully commandeer your ship. But I’m not confident I could _hold_ it. The _taking_ is the easy part. Holding on to it once you’ve taken it is the problem,” she explained, knowing all too well what she was speaking of. “If your men were loyal only to their own purses or some notion of power, it would be simple. But they’re not. I can see now that they’re loyal to you _for you_. You treat them like they matter to you. You work alongside them, take your meals with them, share _most_ of your things with them, listen to them and let them know you. They respect you. They...love you, I suppose.” 

Azula felt foolish then, but she lifted her shoulders and turned her gaze back toward the window. “I thought Lek was exaggerating when he called your crew a family, but he wasn’t. Not that I would know much about that,” she muttered, half beneath her breath.

It was silent for a few endless moments, and as Azula stared out at the sparkling water and the dark shadow of the Earth Kingdom’s shoreline on the horizon she considered how she had once held the fate of the continent in the palm of her hand. And what had she done with it? _Nothing_ except suggest that it be turned to ash. She hadn’t thought of harming anyone, though that didn’t matter. She had simply never spared them a second thought at all. It was as if they hardly existed as anything more than an idea. They were not real people with their own lives and hopes and dreams. 

She thought of the _Silver Lily’s_ crew and the lives they spoke of beyond the shores of Chameleon Bay. She thought of widowed Kyeph in Ba Sing Se who did what was necessary to protect and provide for her family, and sullen Huan and sweet Luhan who never knew their father. She thought of the refugees and paupers in the slums, smiling wearily when the twins showed up with crates of fruits that hadn't sold, smiling _at her_ as she followed the boys in their tasks, as if she had done anything for them at all. She thought of the old herbalist with the long mustache who’d given her a remedy for her injured hand free of charge, and of the bitter cook in the Middle Ring restaurant and the serving boy who made funny faces behind the boss’s back. 

She was struck with the knowledge that she had once held both power over them and responsibility for them, for anyone and everyone who had fallen under her rule the moment she sat on the Earth Kingdom’s throne. Perhaps if she were someone different - someone like Captain Gamuo - she would have done things differently. Yet she had only abandoned the people to their fates under the control of the Dai Li and authority of the Fire Nation. She ran home chasing glory then put all of their lives at risk without a second thought because overshadowing her brother to ensure her place at their father’s side was more important than anything else. 

_And now it’s too late._ Her moment came and went. She rose and she fell and became just another creature struggling for survival. No different than any of them. 

“We’ll be arriving at Kyoshi Island soon.”

Gamuo’s voice broke her contemplative silence, and Azula realized he’d been staring at her. If he caught her comment about family, he did not acknowledge it, and if he had any thoughts on her philosophy of coups and commandeering ships, he did not share them. 

“Wonderful,” Azula replied flatly.

“Not a fan?” Gamuo inquired.

Azula laughed, sudden and short, and the captain appeared almost startled.

She cleared her throat, embarrassed at the outburst. “I’ve never been there.”

The captain eyed her curiously. “So what’s your problem?”

Azula pressed her lips together. She could see painted faces watching her every move, hands resting on the fans in their belts, ready to pull them if she _misbehaved._ She could almost feel the punch of gloved fingers into her body, usually when she was already restrained. She remembered Ty Lee’s wide eyes when she burst into her cell at Zuko’s beckoning, the Kyoshi mask unable to conceal her horror. She remembered sitting at a vanity in a cozy little house in the Upper Ring, not moving a muscle, hardly even breathing as Ty Lee leaned in close and with a finger lifting her chin deftly painted Azula’s face in red and black and white, drawing the slick soft bristles of a brush over her lips while Mai complained that her face itched under all the makeup. She thought of the warm afternoon in the plaza outside of the Jasmine Dragon so recently, of the Kyoshi Warrior or _former_ Kyoshi Warrior or whoever she was making Ty Lee laugh so easily. _Just think_ , _you and I might be married by now_ , the girl said, her voice low and teasing. _Did you ever tell anyone about us?_

“Nothing,” Azula replied, but the word almost choked her. An old, familiar feeling twisted her gut into a knot, and this time she could find no way to convince herself the resentment welling in her meant something other than what it did.

“The port we’re heading for is the home of the governor, so it’s a busier spot than most on the island,” Gamuo remarked. “Though we still weren’t boarded the last time we were here. They do things a little differently, and they don’t have much reason to care about what commerce the Earth King has or hasn’t banned,” he added.

“I’ll help move cargo, then,” Azula suggested quickly, desperate to find something to distract herself with, some way to suppress the storm of shame and regret and _envy_ that threatened her. “I don’t imagine anyone there would, but should someone ask, I’m just a member of the crew.”

“Of course,” Gamuo agreed. “But are you feeling alright? You seem-”

“Never better,” she cut him off, and before the captain could pry further, she exited the bridge.

When they docked near the largest village on the northern coast of the island and began to move the cargo for trade, Hien fretted that she would pass out if she didn’t stop hefting crates and planks of timber out of the hold long enough to drink some water, and Lek joked that the rest of the crew ought to be ashamed to let themselves be outworked by a nineteen year old girl. Azula paid them no heed. 

Hours later, when timber and grains and pounds of blue eel had been exchanged for sugar cane and smoked elephant koi and silver coins, a number of the crew went into the village in hopes of finding a tavern, and she went along with them. Perfectly situated as it was on a peaceful stretch of coast along a favored trade route, the village boasted more than one tavern and a popularity with travelers. Finding a place to accommodate their needs was not difficult. 

Azula meant to go along only for the distraction of the company, but soon galley shifts were traded for drinks, and she found herself in a more talkative if not particularly _better_ mood as the evening wore on. Eventually her boisterous crewmates, countless cups of rice wine deep, began to push drinks her way with no expectation of being repaid in galley shift relief. _Another for Mura!_ the already very drunk chief engineer demanded, and the servers scurrying from table to table were happy to oblige. 

_Mura_ downed another cup to the encouraging hoots of her crewmates, and she pulled stories of her imagined years in Yu Dao and origins as a Fire Nation commoner from thin air. When prompted yet again about the circumstances of her run-in with the Dai Li, this time she obliged. Curiously, the first lie that sprang to her loosened tongue painted a story of an anarchist caught distributing seditious literature on the streets of Ba Sing Se. Mura the anarchist burned the Dai Li agent who caught her and escaped. Mura the anarchist found her way to Lek and Gamuo and outwitted the Dai Li that hunted her down. _Mura the anarchist_ became the subject of friendly jests and another round of drinks in salute. They all seemed to believe the tale - all except Lek, who drank in moderation and peered at her suspiciously from over the rim of his glasses. If he didn’t believe her story, he said nothing.

Weaving her fictions was entertaining at first, but as the time grew later and her head grew heavier with drink, Azula grew quieter. She had reinvented herself for what felt like the thousandth time, and she wondered if the rest of her life would be like this. Always running. Always playing a part. She wondered if she would ever get to be Azula again, freely and openly.

But what did that even mean? She had never been _just_ Azula. It was _Princess_ Azula from the moment she was born. Briefly, so briefly, Crown Princess. Conqueror of Ba Sing Se. Fire Lord. Captive. Fugitive. Mura. Nobody. 

She was so tired. But at least for one night, the bitter sting of jealousies and painful memories was burned away, and she found some warmth in the companionship of the crew that accepted her, even if only a shadow of her true self.

By the time they rose to leave the tavern and return to the ship, the moon had risen high and the village had gone mostly quiet. The ground felt unsteady beneath Azula’s feet as she followed the men outside, and she shivered against the chilled night air. She didn’t dare try to bend to warm herself given their location and her inebriation. Lek, stepping up beside her with a steadying hand at her elbow, commented on how ill prepared she was for the colder weather. Azula scoffed and waved him off.

“Hey! _You!_ Stop right there!”

Azula pivoted at the sound of a sharp feminine voice, and she froze. Two girls dressed in green uniforms and armor, with fans in their belts and paint on their faces, emerged from the shadows of a house across the way from the tavern.

_Shit._

She watched the Kyoshi Warriors approach, her mind racing along with her pulse. She’d known there was the possibility that her information was bad and any one of the villages on the island might have been the one Suki and her band of Kyoshi Warriors hailed from, yet she was nearly certain it was not. She would not have stepped a foot off the ship if she had a reason to believe that the Kyoshi Warriors who were so unfortunate as to be acquainted with her - and she with them - had returned to the island. Other bands of Kyoshi Warriors existed in different villages across the island, that much she knew, but if the girls marching across the street toward them had no cause to recognize her, then what could they possibly want? 

Azula glanced at Lek, frowning beside her, then back toward the girls. Neither looked overly familiar, but the paint and matching uniforms always made it so hard to tell. 

“Is there a problem?” Gamuo demanded, stepping to the front of the group and nearly blocking the girls’ paths.

“I wasn’t talking _to you,_ ” the first girl said, and she deftly side-stepped Gamuo.

“We aren’t looking for any trouble,” he snapped. “And we aren’t locals, so you have no business with us. We were just leaving.”

“ _That’s_ the problem,” the second girl chimed in, stepping between Gamuo and the first girl.

Rooted in her spot, Azula quelled the instinct to go on the offensive before they could get any closer. She realized with a sense of horror that she might not fare so well in a fight in the state she was in. So she waited, looking between the captain and the Kyoshi Warriors.

“Are you alright?” the first girl asked.

Azula blinked. The girl was staring directly at her, but there was no hint of recognition in her gaze. What was more, she sounded _concerned_.

“What?” Azula asked, stupidly.

“I said are you alright?” the girl repeated, stepping closer and putting a hand on Azula’s arm. 

“I’m fine,” Azula stated, shrugging off the girl’s touch. “Why…why wouldn’t I be?” Her tongue felt lazy in her mouth, and she shook her head as if that could clear away the fog.

“You look like you’ve had a lot to drink,” the girl stated, and she shot a glare toward Lek at her side.

“So?” she demanded. In the wake of her relief that the girls didn’t seem to have any idea who she was, Azula felt herself growing annoyed.

“ _So_ they’re trying to make sure you’re not being taken advantage of,” Gamuo cut in with a sigh. “Your pursuit of your duties is admirable, ladies, but Mura is with us. She’s part of my crew.”

“Does that matter?” the second Kyoshi Warrior cut in scornfully. “Again, we weren’t asking _you_.”

“We can give you a safe place to sleep it off,” the first girl offered, ignoring the men and addressing Azula directly.

Understanding dawned on Azula slowly, and she slapped a hand over her mouth to contain the laughter that almost bubbled out of her. It was ironic - absurd even - that two Kyoshi Warriors stood before her offering her aid and refuge. The girls stared at her quizzically, as did Gamuo and Lek and the rest of the crew. They didn’t understand, nor could she explain. She could not even explain to herself why a lump formed in her throat after the urge to laugh passed.

“I’m _fine_ ,” she finally asserted, hoping no one noticed the way her voice cracked.

“Are you sure?” the second girl demanded. “Don’t feel like you have to say that. You can just come with us.”

Shaking her head, Azula took a step back from the Kyoshi Warrior. “No. I’m fine. _Really,_ ” she said, trying to prevent her words from slurring together. “I’m with them. I’ve been…with them at sea for weeks.”

“And you trust them?” the first girl pushed, her skepticism evident. 

Azula was aware of the multitude of eyes watching her expectantly, and her cheeks felt warm as she considered how to reply.

“Please,” Lek cut in, addressing the girl closest to Azula. “I commend what you’re doing here, but Mura is the same age as my own daughter who’s been along with us on a voyage or two in the past. I wouldn’t subject my daughter nor any other woman to such a trip if I had any cause to doubt the honor of this crew.”

“No one here means her any harm,” Gamuo added. “Not to mention that she’s hardly a helpless-”

“I trust them,” Azula blurted out before the captain could say any more. She shot him what she intended as a warning look, though she wasn’t certain it landed as such. The edges of her vision blurred as she stared at him.

The first Kyoshi Warrior dropped a hand from its resting position at her belt and looked at her companion. The other girl shrugged and took a step back from Gamuo.

“Your concern is _appreciated_ ,” Azula added, fighting the sluggishness of her tongue and minding her pronunciation, “however...unnecessary.”

“Well, if you insist...I suppose you can be on your way,” one of the girls replied with a nod, though she still sounded uncertain. 

Gamuo offered a bow, polite yet stilted, before he walked on toward the road out of the village with the rest of the crew on his heels. Azula sensed he did not appreciate the impugning of his honor and that of his crew, however much he might understand. Lek seemed less bothered and bid the Kyoshi Warriors a good evening before he brought up the rear of the group at her side.

“That was a neat...neat little lie, about a daughter,” Azula commented once they were out of earshot. A particularly large stone went flying out of her path before it could become a stumbling block, and Azula nearly tripped regardless as she blinked over at Lek.

Smiling at her, Lek pushed his glasses up his nose with one hand and spun the rock in the air before dropping it off to the side. “It wasn’t a lie,” he replied. “I do have a daughter, exactly your age.”

“You never mentioned that before,” Azula protested.

“You never asked,” Lek returned with a shrug. “You’ve met her though.”

“ _I_ have?” she queried. When Lek simply nodded, she thought about it for a few moments. “The girl at the…” She trailed off and waved a hand, unable to recall the name of the establishment.

“The Blue Eel,” Lek filled in. “Yes, that was my daughter. She and my wife run the place when I’m away. Well, to be truthful, they run the place even while I’m there,” he laughed.

“You all really do keep the business in the family, don’t you,” Azula remarked. “You don’t worry? I mean leaving… leaving them alone in Ba Sing Se for so long?”

Lek pulled another protruding stone from her path, this time without startling her. “I do worry, as any father would, but if you think _I’m_ talented, you should see my daughter. Though I must say, I’d be far more worried about her if she were running around somewhere far from home, all on her own,” he added with a sidelong glance. “There’s a certain safety in home and family, even if it’s not in the best place imaginable.”

Azula suddenly felt the chill of the breeze coming in off the coast more sharply, and she wrapped her arms around herself and picked up her pace to blend into the rest of the crew, putting space between herself and the possibility of any further conversation.

  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  


The _Silver Lily_ nearly prolonged their voyage with a stop on the opposite coast of the island after the first mate informed Gamuo the next morning of a small village situated on a bay which, according to a Kyoshi Islander the first mate conversed with in the tavern the previous evening, had experienced boom in their popularity with traders in recent years due to some manner of development and expansion. 

_But be forewarned!_ the first mate had said with a lilt in his voice, as if mimicking the Islander. _The bay is home to the mighty Unagi!_ _Are we supposed to be afraid, I asked him. Well, maybe not, but I don’t know that they’ll have much interest in your eels! he says._

 _That_ village sounded suspiciously akin to the one that Azula was determined to avoid. To her relief, Captain Gamuo decided not to bother with the far side of the island, and they moved onward.

Weeks after their departure from Chameleon Bay, after Kyoshi Island and stops at Chin Village and a few more cities and villages along the Earth Kingdom’s eastern coast, they finally reached Fire Nation waters. Gamuo hoisted the flag that marked them as a merchant vessel just beneath the insignia of the _Silver Lily._ They encountered a few lazy patrols, none of which bothered them beyond a wave if the boat happened to sail close enough to their ship. 

They docked at several ports along the lesser islands, and on a clear day they reached Shuhon Island and made port outside of Fire Fountain City. Azula waited in the cargo hold while they were boarded by an inspector, but it was a needless precaution. A few coins dropped into the man’s hand ensured that he never set foot below deck and waved them on to their business. It would hardly matter even if the man did want to actually inspect their wares. She couldn’t imagine an official from Fire Fountain City giving a damn whether their cargo of Earth Kingdom origin was legal or not. She expected the capital to be more exacting.

Offloading cargo and completing sales with the local merchants took the better part of the day, and Azula’s only contribution was to handle the eels destined for the market before they were passed up from below deck. She didn’t return above deck herself until after nightfall, just before Gamuo and Lek and several members of the crew left to spend the evening in the city. 

“Coming with?” Lek asked as he fastened a small coin purse to his belt.

Azula shook her head. “I’ll stay here and keep an eye on the ship.”

“No need. Some of the men are already staying behind,” Gamuo returned.

“I don’t want to, alright?” Azula sighed. “And you should be careful. This city is a rough place.”

The captain snorted at her warning. “Don’t worry about us. We always watch each other’s backs.”

“And I have my bending. _Just in case_ ,” Lek added.

“ _No!_ ” Azula shot back, aghast. “You can’t _earthbend_ here. _What are you thinking?_ ” When Lek frowned at her, she shook her head. “Just… don’t do that, alright? If something happens, send someone for me. Look, I know the war is over and _you_ don’t hold grudges, but you can’t expect the same of people here. It’s too dangerous. You may already have targets on your backs as foreigners. Swear you aren’t going to do something stupid,” she demanded.

“Alright, alright! _Spirits_ ,” Lek complained, raising both hands. 

The captain was shaking his head and seemed to be suppressing laughter, but Azula did not find it humorous. 

“We’ve been coming here regularly for years now,” Gamuo pointed out. “We haven’t yet had a problem.”

“I don’t care,” Azula retorted. “If you don’t know better than to earthbend in the middle of a place like Fire Fountain City, then clearly you _need_ someone to tell you better.”

“That’s right, tell ‘em what’s what, Mura!” one of the men from the engine crew hollered as he passed them on his way to the gangplank. 

Lek rolled his eyes. “Let’s go. I have an itch that needs scratching.”

“Gambling is his one true vice,” Gamuo remarked. “I have to watch him like a hawk, or he’d lose everything down to the last copper piece.”

“Bullshit,” Lek shot back. “I’m a natural winner, and fortune is on my side tonight. I can feel it.”

Azula watched them leave, a vague sense of unease settling over her. Something seemed amiss, but she could not place it. The lights of the city were clearly visible from their position on the docks. The place seemed lively enough. The smokestacks of the factories dotted along the ways up the bluffs stood cold, which was not _necessarily_ unusual, yet…there was a time when dark smoke would have been unfurling into the night sky even late into the night.

Frowning, Azula moved closer to the bow of the ship to get a better view of the road leading from the docks of the harbor to the city. She could see the city clearly then, and a looming figure rising from the center.

She inhaled sharply. _That_ was what was unsettling her. The towering statute of Ozai still stood, but in shadow, illuminated only by the lights of the surrounding city. No fire poured from his opened mouth or his fists. It was eerie in a way she wasn’t sure she could articulate. 

Azula supposed she ought to be surprised that the statue still stood at all. She might have expected Zuko to have it torn down. Yet it stood. In darkness. She wondered if that was meant to send a message: _Fire Lord Ozai, a lord of fire no more_. She couldn’t be certain it was intentional, but if it was, she would have to give Zuko credit for such a particularly cold yet effective bit of messaging. 

Hours later, most of which Azula spent pacing the deck in the moonlight as if she was a sentry, the crew began to return to the ship one by one. Most of them at least half drunk. A few complaining about their gambling misfortunes. They gathered around the brazier Azula had lit on the deck to warm their hands, and Hien informed her that she had missed a particularly fun evening. 

“Well, at least I’m not missing an earring,” Azula replied with a pointed look at Gamuo as he stepped from the gangplank onto the deck with Lek trailing him. 

Gamuo frowned at her, and she lifted a brow. His hand shot to his left ear.

“ _Son of a_ …”

Azula crossed her arms over her chest while the men on deck laughed. “So. How did that happen?”

“I don’t know,” Gamuo grumbled.

“Oh yes you do! Tell the truth, Captain,” one of the men prompted.

Lek, not even trying to hide his smugness, gave his cousin a patronizing pat on the arm. “Now who was it who needed to be watched like a hawk, again?”

“The captain here got a little, ah... _friendly_ with some woman in a tavern,” Hien offered when Gamuo failed to answer the question. “She spent the whole evening in his lap. Must’ve decided to relieve him of a bit of gold before she left.”

“She doesn’t need the details,” Gamuo snapped as the crew hooted with laughter.

“Can’t say I didn’t warn you,” Azula remarked with a shrug. “Although I was more imagining you being set upon in an alleyway than….that.”

“Oh? Worried about us, were you?” Lek teased.

Azula scowled at him.

“Off my deck now, all of you,” Gamuo griped, tugging absently at his unadorned earlobe. “Early start tomorrow same as usual.”

Lek lingered behind while Gamuo and the rest of the men disappeared below deck.

“As it turns out, fortune _was_ on my side tonight, if not poor Gamuo’s,” Lek commented wryly, patting the coin purse on his belt which looked distinctly fatter than it had when it left. He was carrying a dark cloak draped over one arm, and he shook it out and held it up for Azula to see. “What do you think?” 

Reaching out and feeling the soft yet sturdy material, she examined the cloak as best she could in the poor lightning and raised a brow when she noted the emblem of fire at the clasp. “It’s decent. But where did you get this?” she asked suspiciously. “Please tell me you didn’t do something stupid.”

“Of course not,” Lek scoffed. “I won it off some man in a tavern when he lost our game.”

“Commoners don’t wear the emblem on their clothing like this,” Azula retorted. “Where did you _really_ get it?”

“Are you so sure?” Lek asked. “Because I saw quite a bit of this sort of thing all over the city. Maybe people are feeling a bit...” Lek waved a hand as if searching for the right word, “patriotic?”

Azula frowned. “Why would they?” she demanded. “We lost a hundred-year long war not long ago.”

“Maybe that’s precisely why,” Lek replied with a shrug. “Anyway, you have my word that I didn’t do anything but gamble and win.”

“Well, considering that it doesn’t appear anyone has chased you back here with torches and swords, I’ll assume you’re telling the truth. But are you really going to go around wearing the insignia of the Fire Nation?” she queried skeptically.

“Of course not,” Lek replied. “You are.”

Azula dropped her hand and stared at him. 

He pushed his glasses up his nose with one hand and held out the cloak to her with the other. “It’s for you. Take it,” he prompted.

“I can’t pay you for that,” Azula asserted.

“Did I ask you to? I didn’t pay for it either, I won it. And like you implied, it would be a bit odd for me to go around wearing a fire emblem at my neck. And-” Lek paused to clear his throat. “Well, we’ve obviously noticed that you don’t have...much of anything. And summer’s well over. It’s cold most nights, and getting colder.”

“It never really gets _that_ cold in the Fire Nation,” Azula argued. “Besides… firebender, remember?”

“Still,” Lek pushed. “It’s just a cloak. If my daughter was off somewhere on her own in the world, I would hope someone would at least have the decency to give her a cloak for the cold. Come on, don’t make this more difficult than it needs to be.”

Hesitantly, Azula reached out and took the cloak from Lek’s hands. She felt strangely vulnerable in her discomfort, but she forced herself to look him steadily in the eyes as she thanked him.

“I appreciate it, Lek.”

“See. No big deal,” Lek replied with a small smile. “Goodnight. See you at dawn.”

When Lek departed for the cabins and left her alone on deck, Azula unfurled the cloak and slung it around her shoulders. She slipped the small loop of material at the neck around the emblem on the other side to clasp it securely, and with the pads of her fingertips she traced the pattern in the metal, the shape of the flame as familiar as the gentle thrum of her own pulse beneath it.

  
  


* * *

  
  


Several days and several stops along other points on Shuhon Island and eventually the southeastern peninsula of Capital Island, the harbor that would eventually lead to Capital City loomed in the distance. They were several miles off yet from the entrance to the harbor, but Azula could feel herself growing more anxious simply knowing how close they were. They would pass the Great Gates of Azulon in darkness, and without any delays, they would be docked outside of Harbor City by late afternoon the next day. 

Raucous shouting burst from below deck at intervals, and Azula pulled the edges of her new cloak more securely around her shoulders as the wind picked up. She’d been invited to join in the gambling games in the mess hall but refused in favor of catching some fresh air. 

She glanced up at the glow of light emanating from the bridge and briefly considered joining the captain or first mate or whoever was on duty, but she wasn’t really in the mood to talk to anyone. She supposed it would be too odd to simply join them and carry on in silence. There was always the chance that someone would begin asking prying questions as well, and while she had held her own and more or less kept all of her lies straight, she found the ordeal increasingly exhausting. Just the day before, Hien had taken an interest in her supposed political beliefs, and she found herself scrambling to patch together something that resembled a coherent ideology from what she could remember of anything she’d learned in school about the inherent dangers of treasonous philosophies. Hien seemed satisfied with whatever nebulous nonsense about _freedom_ from oppressive rule she’d spouted.

It _was_ nonsense. Or at least, her attempt at explaining something she knew nothing about was. But she did know something about freedom. She knew what it meant to have what little she possessed taken away. And she knew what it meant to have taken it away from someone else. 

Azula closed her eyes as she leaned against the gunwale, feeling the sea breeze ruffling her hair and the light mist of salt spray in her face. She felt the prick of guilt within her, but she’d long grown accustomed to its sting. In the past she’d tried to protect herself from it with protestations of how _lenient_ and _merciful_ she had been. How she _had no choice_.

It was a poor shield. She could hardly think of how desperately wretched and cruel her own imprisonment within the asylum had been without also considering the cruelty she’d inflicted on the only friends she’d ever had. There was no reasoning her way past it. The only shred of leniency she could offer herself was to acknowledge that she hadn’t known how dearly the loss of freedom could be felt until it had happened to her. It astounded her how torturous it was, considering what little real freedom she possessed in the first place. Still, the confinement and indignity were a torment, even if her life had never truly been her own.

Often, in quiet moments left alone with her thoughts, she contemplated what she might have done differently. She’d had no choice but to obey when Ozai ordered her to get rid of the traitor who had brought shame upon them. At least, that’s what she told herself, and the injury of Zuko’s defection robbed her of any desire to do otherwise. She had no choice but to punish traitors, or so she convinced herself while she bled from the wounds of her closest friends’ betrayals. The law must be obeyed, and the Fire Lord was never to be questioned. 

But Zuko had questioned him. Zuko had _defied_ him. Stupid, _weak_ Zuko defied their father, while she had obeyed his every command without question. Even when she had to bury her own heart to do so. Even after he abandoned her. Even when she knew that he never cared for her. He’d tasked her with killing her own mother, and she had accepted it as a duty to be fulfilled, spurred on by her own pain and bitterness. Ozai surely knew.

Azula laughed, and the bitter sound was lost to the wind. 

A shadow loomed in the darkness, but Azula needed no light but the dim cast of the sliver of moon over the water to know what lay ahead. She could barely make out the shape of her grandfather’s image, but it was there all the same, like a dark spectre materializing from the shadows. 

The ship slipped through the water, steadily closer to the figure of her namesake, and Azula remembered the night she had hidden within the throne room and looked on as her father was commanded to do the unthinkable as a reward for an unpalatable request. 

_Only it wasn’t really unthinkable, was it?_ Ozai had been as prepared to kill his own son on the Fire Lord’s orders as she had been to kill her brother and mother for the same reason. And she had once been prepared to make the same request of him, believing it would be different for her. Yet once she found herself returned home from the Earth Kingdom, bowing before her father in his throne room, the memory of Azulon’s anger and her father’s punishment stole her nerve, and she had not dared to ask. Even the gift of Ba Sing Se laid at his feet and the support of the Dai Li at her back was not enough to fortify her courage, and the fear of her father seeped into her relationship with Zuko once more, and poisoning it anew. She fleetingly wondered if it was fear or hatred or both that had driven Ozai to nearly taking Zuko’s life.

The gates of the great Azulon took shape in the mist, and Azula sneered into the darkness.

“Hello, _grandfather_.”

Heavy footsteps sounded on the deck behind her, and Azula whirled.

“Are you talking to yourself out here now?” Captain Gamuo asked as he approached.

“No,” Azula replied shortly.

Gamuo joined her in leaning against the gunwale. “I saw you from the bridge. Thought you should know that we’re approaching the Gates of Azulon. I doubt we’ll be stopped there, but-”

“I’m aware,” Azula sighed, turning to face him. “I’ll get below deck.”

“Hold up a moment. You have a little time,” Gamuo stopped her with a hand to her arm. “I wanted to talk to you.”

“About?”

“This. Look, I don’t know what your business is, and it isn’t my business to know. But I want you to know that you have options,” the captain replied.

“What does that mean?” Azula asked, her curiosity piqued.

“It means if, by chance, you don’t want to get off when we reach the capital, you don’t have to,” Gamuo explained, inclining his head toward their far off destination in the harbor. “How would you like a job?”

Azula stared at him. “A job doing what?”

“What you’ve been doing,” he answered. “They appreciate your skills on the furnaces, you know that. Or it could be anything you want, really. I could take you on as an apprentice if you’ve an interest in becoming a captain someday. No need to commandeer any ships then. Or you could be the official pipe lighter and eel wrangler for all I care,” Gamuo offered with a half smile and a shrug. “See? Options.”

He was joking, yet the offer was genuine. Azula found herself at a loss for words.

“No need to answer right now,” the captain continued. “Just think about it. Now go on and get yourself down to the cargo hold. Just in case.”

Azula nodded and moved herself below deck and down into her designated hideout in the secret hold with the eel tanks, half of which now stood empty. Not for the first time, the absurdity of her situation struck her as she crouched in the darkness deep within the hull of the merchant vessel, and as she bade her time she contemplated the captain’s offer. The idea of being welcomed and wanted as a true member of the crew moved her, and it would be a reasonable choice to accept the position and the relative safety it might offer. But she had long since thrown reason to the wind, and she already had a place she belonged - even if her current course threatened the likelihood that she would ever make it home.

She thought again of that fateful day at the Boiling Rock prison, of the defiance in Mai’s eyes as she stared her own death in the face and of Ty Lee’s resolute acceptance of the punishment that resulted from her choice. They had both acted against their own self-interest, and it went against reason. At least, it had then. Azula had not understood _then_ what could drive a person to act against their own best interests. 

_I love Zuko more than I fear you,_ Mai had said, and her words might as well have been her blades. She had not seen it coming, because she had not _seen_ at all. She hadn’t known then what could move someone to choices that to any reasonable person would appear insane.

It was nearly an hour before the second mate came down to fetch her with the promise that they were safely past the harbor gates. At his prompting she joined the off-duty crew in the mess hall, knowing it would be her last evening among them. 

The rowdy gambling was over other than a single game three men remained absorbed in on one side of the room, but the rest were gathered around Hien where he sat on one of the tables with a pipa on his lap and a smile on his face. It was not the first time Azula had heard him play, but his usual songs were the songs of sailors, lively and vigorously sung by the crew who knew every word. 

This time was different. Azula was enraptured as the music of the instrument filled the room, and Hien’s voice quieted every other as he sang.

_Tonight autumn comes with its crisp chilly breeze_

_Tonight turquoise mist makes cloud edges all blurry_

_Whose boat is it - flowing downstream, aimless_

_As though yearning for someone, heart weighed down by a tangle of silk_

_In the foliage, autumn's breath along with its breeze_

_Streams through endless branches, impassioned in their reverie_

_Lands far far away, whispers of the wind echo through pine trees by the thousands,_

_Who's hurting, who's aching for whom, dreamily_

_Surfing on the wind, a boat tethered to the clear, clear moon_

_Floats on the river where the current splits in two_

_Knowing not where to dock, oh Boat, to where will you float?_

_On the river how deep, how shallow: no one knows_

_Remember when the afternoon mist empathizes with you_

_So much chagrined love, Boat dreams of giving up and going with the flow_

_The harbor - however earnestly dreamed of, oh Boat, don't keep your hope afloat_

_Pale moonlight shines on a boat in the dark cavernous night_

_On a river so wide, oh Boat, where's the dock you wish you could go?_

The men cheered and whistled as Hien finished his song, and the spell was broken, but the air in the hall suddenly felt stifling. Azula blinked against the sting of tears behind her eyes, hoping no one noticed her where she stood along the far wall.

Hien did. He offered her his wide smile and a barely perceptible wink before obliging a crewmate’s request for another song. His fingers plucked and glided and the pipa sang again, this time in a more familiar and lively tune, but Azula hardly noticed. His last song still echoed in her mind, and later that night, deep in her dreams.

_The harbor - however earnestly dreamed of, oh Boat, don't keep your hope afloat_

_Pale moonlight shines on a boat in the dark cavernous night_

_On a river so wide, oh Boat, where's the dock you wish you could go?_

  
  


* * *

  
  
  


The better part of the next day Azula spent in darkness. She went below deck just before they reached the sea gate of the First Lord’s Harbor and remained in the secret hold for hours, waiting. The _Silver Lily_ was directed to one of the far docks reserved for merchant vessels within the harbor and boarded by a port official who actually conducted an inspection, though she never so much as came close to suspecting anything amiss. Captain Gamuo released Azula from the hold once the woman departed, and she remained below deck helping to move eels into smaller, discreet tanks to be loaded onto a rented cart with the rest of the cargo destined for the markets of Harbor City. When Gamuo and Lek and several of the men left for the trip through the Royal Plaza and into the city, Azula made her way to the ship’s bridge to take in the view of her former home for the first time in years from a relatively obscure position.

She was shocked by what she saw. 

In the waning afternoon light, the Royal Plaza looked like anything but the orderly and austere symbol of the Fire Nation’s might that she remembered. A few of the docks in the harbor were occupied by military craft, and a few soldiers patrolled outside of the ships and guards occupied the Royal Plaza near the tower, but they were outnumbered by merchants moving their wares and civilians strolling peacefully along the piers and beaches. There was little in the way of discernible order, and Azula wondered if there was even a checkpoint any longer to inspect the passports of the travelers who passed beneath the tower and into the streets of the city. 

It occurred to her that she ought to have anticipated changes, and furthermore that she had hardly known the Fire Nation capital in a time of peace. Still, she found the change disconcerting. Perhaps only because it served as a reminder that life had gone on without her.

Gamuo and the rest of the men returned near dusk, cart nearly empty and coin purses full. Azula met them on the deck, daring to step out of the confines of the ship with the fading of daylight and the assurance of a crewmate that there were no soldiers in the vicinity of their dock.

“I told you the Fire Nation is our best customer,” Gamuo quipped when he noticed the expression on Azula’s face as Lek collected the profits of their venture and carried them off to a safe in Gamuo’s quarters. 

“Hm. So, what’s the layout?” Azula inquired, crossing her arms over her chest. “Did they stop you at the tower?” 

“Yes, there was a passport check, though they barely looked at them,” Gamuo replied. 

“And the battlements?” 

“Manned, if you could call it that,” Gamuo said. “The guards seem to have nothing better to do then to stand around bantering with each other or flirting with civilians.”

Azula furrowed her brow as she stared out over the water toward the plaza, weighing her options. Gamuo had offered to temporarily return her false passport and travel into the city with her. She _could_ take her chances going through the plaza and the tower, but if she were stopped or recognized, everything would be ruined and all for nothing. 

“Have you made up your mind what you’re going to do?” Gamuo asked. “There’s no rush,” he added. “We were permitted to dock until morning, and we probably don’t even have time now to fire her up before they close the sea gate for the night.”

Lek returned to the deck then and joined them, and Azula felt a strange regret as she looked between the cousins. 

“I’m going over the bluffs after dark,” Azula replied, inclining her head toward the far end of the harbor. “I can get to the roads that lead into the city from up there.”

“You’re going to climb the bluffs _in the dark?_ ” Lek repeated, sounding disturbed, and Gamuo shook his head.

“Well, I can’t very well climb in daylight when I might be spotted by soldiers, now can I? I could bend my way up, but in the dark, that would certainly be spotted as well,” Azula reasoned with a shrug. “Anyway, they’re not _that_ high, and I’m more than capable.”

“I don’t doubt it, but still,” Gamuo huffed. “I don’t like that. You’re not a mountain goat.” 

“No,” Azula replied, suppressing a small smile as she thought of Zyn. “Mountain goats have nothing on me.”

The captain snorted. “Awfully full of yourself, aren’t you.”

“How about I come along and give you a boost,” Lek suggested.

Azula lifted a brow. “If you shouldn’t be earthbending in Fire Fountain City, then you shouldn’t be doing it here either,” she objected.

“That’s different,” Lek argued. “Earthbending isn’t going to attract that kind of attention in the dark. It will be fine. Can’t have you falling and breaking your neck after you made it this far.”

“If you insist,” Azula relented.

“Are you sure you don’t want that job, then?” Gamuo pressed. 

A wistful half smile tugged at the corner of Azula’s lips, but she shook her head. “It’s a tempting offer, and one I appreciate, Captain, but no. I’m a Fire National. For good or ill, this is my home. And I have unfinished business here.”

  
  
  


Later that night, under the cover of darkness and the blessing of a new moon, Azula stood on the deck with the captain and Lek once more with her new cloak around her shoulders and her satchel strapped across her chest. She’d taken a last meal in the galley with the crew and bid them farewell, appreciating the wishes of safety and luck that followed her out. Hien stopped her at the stairs and with the familiar warmth of his toothy smile wished her good fortune. 

“You'll be missed around here, you know,” Hien assured her.

Azula had cleared a sudden scratch in her throat and bid Hien farewell with a bow, but she found herself similarly plagued as she stood before the captain and said her goodbyes.

“You’re _sure_ you don’t want to stay on?” the captain asked. “We’re stopping at Ember Island on our way back to the Earth Kingdom. It’s beautiful there. Ever been?”

Azula grimaced. “Yes, I’ve been, and it’s the last place in the world I want to go. You’re right, it is beautiful though,” she added quickly when she noted the look on Gamuo’s face. “You should catch a play while you’re there, if you can. The Ember Island Players are…hit or miss, but it’s usually entertaining regardless.”

“Right, thanks for the suggestion,” Lek replied. 

“We’ll be here 'til morning should you change your mind,” Gamuo reminded her. “And if you ever change it in the future, well…” he swept a hand outward to indicate the open sea. “You have a general idea of where to find us,” he added with a short laugh.

Azula nodded, taking a moment to ensure a steady voice. “You’ve been kind to me, Captain, which is more than what I paid for. I bid you smooth sailing and good fortunes,” she replied with a bow. 

“Hm,” the captain grunted, clearing his throat. “Alright then. Off my ship with you now.”

Captain Gamuo jerked his head toward the gangplank, but the faint smile on his lips belied the gruffness of his voice.

The captain remained on the deck of the ship watching as she and Lek descended the gangplank and stole down past several rows of empty docks in the darkness. Azula kept an eye on the watchtowers in the distance, scattered along the docks and the sea wall, but the only sign of life was soft golden light glowing from the windows of the towers. The apparent laxity of the city’s once strictly regimented defenses still came as a shock, but she would not question the fortunate peacetime laziness if it worked in her favor.

When they reached a stretch of beach a ways past the docks and a quiet row of barracks dug into the side of the bluffs, halfway between the military fortifications and the beginning towers of the sea wall, Azula stopped and looked and listened. She saw no one and could hear nothing but the whistling of the wind and the roar of the waves that beat against the sea wall and the bluffs beyond them. She turned to Lek.

“Here is best,” she asserted quietly. 

“Here’s hoping this isn’t very disruptive,” Lek replied with a grimace as he dropped into a stance.

“It won’t be. We’re used to tremors in the earth here. Volcanic islands and all. People hardly even notice them.”

“Ah, right. I forgot there are people crazy enough to build their civilizations inside volcanoes,” Lek teased. “Stand back.”

Azula stepped further back toward the water, and Lek held his position in the sand for a moment before he raised his arms and drew a winding ladder from the earth and stone of the bluffs. 

“Impressive,” Azula commented. 

“I’ll clear all traces once you’re gone,” Lek promised.

“I appreciate the help,” she replied. “Be careful going back.”

“Of course,” he returned. “Oh, wait. Here,” he added, and he pulled a small purse from within his vest. When she made no move to take it, Lek pulled her satchel from her side and tucked the purse into it.

“Lek, I can’t-”

“Shush. I don’t want to hear it. Seems things are exorbitantly expensive in this city, and you’ll need it. Now get going, before we get caught looking suspicious out here.” 

Azula suppressed any further protest, able only to offer a curt nod. “Thank you,” she uttered.

“Goodbye, Mura. And good luck with your anarchies or… whatever it is you’re _really_ doing.”

Her companion’s features were shadowed in the darkness, but there was a lilt in his lowered voice, and she could almost hear the smile in it. 

“Goodbye, Lek.”

“Up you go, mountain goat,” Lek prompted.

Without another word, Azula turned and began to climb the makeshift stairway, Lek and the ground below her and everything but the determination of her purpose drifting away as she disappeared into the shadows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, we’re out of the frying pan and…into the fire? We’ll see! Anyway, Azulas can have little a teenage rebellion and existential angst, as a treat. 
> 
> The Poppy War author R.F. Kuang recently talked (on twitter) about the beauty of writing with footnotes, and while I agree wholeheartedly and very much wanted to make some footnotes for this chapter, the updates wouldn’t have made it out today if I had to spend the time figuring out how to format a footnote on here, so! Consider these some makeshift footnotes:
> 
> 1.) If you were wondering what exactly Azula & Crew were smoking, that would be nicotiana rustica (more popularly known as thuốc lào), a particularly potent variety of tobacco, in a dieu cay (a pipe commonly made from bamboo). PSA: this chapter was NOT sponsored by Big Tobacco, nor should it be considered an advertisement for smoking. 
> 
> 2.) This is something that has been an assumption of mine from the beginning but didn’t really warrant a mention until now, but just so it’s clear: in this story, Kyoshi Island is not formally a part of the Earth Kingdom. I understand this to be a canon-divergence, unless I’ve misinterpreted various materials on the subject. Regardless, there are a few reasons for this divergence. The first of which is that, in the ATLA episode where the fake!Kyoshi Warriors are greeted by the Earth King, he greets them as “esteemed allies” and treats them as honored guests. This, to me, does not make a great deal of sense if the citizens of Kyoshi Island were technically Earth Kingdom subjects, nor does it make sense to me that the various bands of Kyoshi Warriors would not have been conscripted into the war long before Suki and her band decided to travel to the mainland to be of service to the war effort. Secondly, I prefer to think that when Avatar Kyoshi separated the peninsula that would become Kyoshi Island from the mainland to protect the people, she separated them in no uncertain terms. Basically told the Earth Kingdom and its rulers to fuck all the way off and set up a governorship of the island, which still exists in the timeline of this story but as more of a figurehead of unity for the island and a position to honor Avatar Kyoshi rather than a person who wields any serious power over the island. Rather, control remains local, with each village having their own chief and smaller governing bodies in addition to their bands of Kyoshi Warriors who help protect the people and keep the peace. Kyoshi Island maintains a political alliance with the Earth Kingdom, but they are a separate entity. Some Earth Kingdom authorities may have continued to consider them a part of the Earth Kingdom given that they are not technically a new nation (rather, a collection of interdependent communities inhabiting an island together under the figurehead of a governor; this is different though perhaps not altogether unique - plenty of villages in the provinces of the Earth Kingdom likely also operate this way, though they are formally recognized as Earth Kingdom subjects). No one in power has thus far cared enough to try to press the point. Furthermore, before the Southern Water Tribe was decimated by the war, Kyoshi Island maintained strong political and cultural ties with their neighbors to the south as well. Those ties have been renewed with the rebuilding of the Southern Water Tribe. Thirdly, as my favorite anarchist Ru Shi hails from Kyoshi Island, her politics are largely informed by the community that she was raised in: independent yet interdependent with local, cooperative, and egalitarian governance. Not to mention, no reliance upon or obligation to any ruler on any throne.
> 
> 3.) The song sung by Hien is a translation of the Vietnamese song Con Thuyền Không Bến, translated by user [moonriver_andM](https://lyricstranslate.com/en/translator/moonriverandm) on [LyricsTranslate](https://lyricstranslate.com/). HUGE thank you to moonriver_andM for the beautiful translation of a beautiful song and for granting me permission to use it in my story! 
> 
> 4.) I also owe a HUGE thank you and shout out to [fincheswings](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fincheswings/profile) for the idea and the conversation that led to this perfect song being included in the story. So much gratitude to you, finchy, for the way you inspire me! ❤  
> 
> 
> Before I end up writing a novel here, let me just take a moment again to thank you for your patience and for your investment in this story. I’m truly honored to have you all here, and I can’t wait to share the upcoming chapters with you!


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